March 19, 2024

Melt Banana – melting faces at The Brudenell Social Club 2019

Live at The Brudenell Social Club 23rd October 2019

Melt Banana make Rolo Tomassi sound like lounge music. They give Atari Teenage Riot a serious challenge. Loud, furious, intense – but FUN. Despite inhabiting the crusty land of noise and grindcore, there’s none of the usual bollocks about doom, Satan and wastelands. Instead we have happy, inconsequential nonsense in japanese (or so I’m told).

The passion and speed of the first half an hour was energising and the band didn’t outstay our energy levels with a perfect set length of an hour. That first half an hour sent people jerking randomly and pinballing about to the brutal electronics and guitar. But then, quite rightly, it was time for a bit of a chat about Charlie the dog (the Brudenell’s pet) and how to pronounce the name of the club. And it was back into a suite of songs, none of them more than 30 seconds long! A smile and a laugh and an invite to buy some merch. This tour showcases their Noughties singles, none of them exactly long. The moshpit was loving and both Yako on vocals and Agata on guitar were smiling. Of course, Agata had his signature smog mask on but his eyes were bright.

Seeing and hearing Agata set up for the encore was an education in fullness of sound. He pedalled the guitar loops in, set up the octave shifter and other effects and the sound was immense. Yako had her laptop set up, triggered by her weaponised hand-console to fire off bursts of beats or swathes of effects. She waved it like a lightsabre, used it as a pistol, theramin-ed swooshes of sound. Alongside her yelps, and Agata’s foot stomps, the experience was overwhelming.

And then. And then….. what seemed to be The Damned’s Neat Neat Neat but renamed Sick Sick Sick and sung in Japanese. Outstanding and grin-making and double the speed of the already-breakneck original.

Exhausting and energising – just perfect.

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