Melt-Banana - Bambi's Dilemma

For a Melt-Banana virgin, the first experience can be confusing, bizarre and downright disorienting. Lightning-speed tempos and wildly experimental guitar combined with high-pitched "miscellaneous" vocals make for one extremely spastic musical ride. Since their early beginnings, Melt-Banana has introduced more pop hooks and choruses as well as more apparent organization in their compositions, but they've also managed to retain the elusive beast that is their "older" sound. The accessible experimentation first reared its heads in their 2003 album, Cell-Scape, and for the second time around, their efforts in pop experimentation and noise-rock beginnings solidified in the delightfully noisy Bambi’s Dilemma.

Melt-Banana’s ninth studio album boasts a palpable sense of experimentation, production and humor. The band continues to work its music without overworking it, pulling back just at the right moment. They manage to keep from being overly repetitive and stay interesting with the use of out-of-place sound bites as support, such as what seems to be piano chords on drugs in Cat Brain Land. Every song has its own hilarious and fun personality, whether it's incorporated into the sound or actually put right out there like in Dog Song, where vocalist Yako alternates between singing about her dog and barking.

The first half of the tracks on Bambi’s Dilemma seem to have picked up where Cell-Scape left off with fast-paced noise and new-wave grindcore comfortably sharing the same bed as pop-punk and developed melodies and choruses. The third track, Cracked Plaster Cast, shows off just how well this mix can work; arguably one of the "softer" tracks - if you could call it that - this piece gives you a continuous easy-going melody interspersed with frenzied moments that will catch listeners completely off guard. Melt-Banana seems to enjoy incorporating softer noise or melodies with their trademark spazzy guitars and vocals, repeating the idea in The Call of the Vague and Green-Eyed Devil. Chill guitars and electronic beats, respectively, introduce the tracks before twisting random energy bursts; the calmer elements continue to carry the tracks through to keep the listeners on their toes.

Following the tenth track, Melt-Banana gives five under-a-minute tracks, going back to its roots of brief, thrashing bursts of noise. Second to last, Chain Keeper returns as an extended version of those five thrash tracks, delivering an appropriately confusing and somewhat agitating minute and a half of vocalist Yako's tongue-twisting gibberish and Agata's wildly experimental screeching guitar before delving into the finale, Last Target On The Last Day. Fittingly, Last Target On The Last Day combines everything on this album: the haunting and ethereal electronica noise reminiscent of the mid-album interlude Type: Ecco System as well as echoing ghosts of Melt-Banana's usual fare. It leaves listeners wondering just what is going to come next?

Somehow, Melt-Banana manages to be completely unpredictable without having to actually do something completely unpredictable. If their sound were a Pokemon, it would be Bambi’s Dilemma, the evolved form of the band since its beginnings: bigger and badder in brand-spanking new packaging, but still the same creature in theory. It's harder, better, faster and stronger. No matter how many times you listen to it, there's always something new to be discovered. At the same time, it keeps all of the seemingly random noise and composition, the frenetic and surprising guitar riffs and grinds courtesy of Agata. And, of course, there is Yako's high, rapid-fire vocal nonsense. It's just as weirdly fascinating, charmingly annoying and completely and utterly incomprehensible as it has always been.

It will always pull the rug out from under your feet, too, whether or not you like it. You'll probably like it - but if you don’t, give Melt-Banana a few more listens. The first time is always a little bit weird.