Manjo Icchi wa Muko
Artist: Sanhedolin
Album: Manjo Icchi wa Muko
Musicians: Haino Keiji (guitar, vocals, flute), Nasuno Mitsuru (bass), Yoshida Tatsuya (drums)
Composer/Lyricist:
Release Date: 10 Aug 2005
| Manjo Icchi wa Muko - Sanhedolin Tracklisting 01. Track One *Bold titles - recommended listening. |
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OVERVIEW
Sanhedolin is a progressive rock band with three artists that are relatively well-known in the genre. Their sound has been characterized as “chaos rock.” And Manjo Icchi wa Muko is just that: chaos. This music is not for everyone; in fact, it’s not for anyone who values any kind of musicality in the music they listen to. The entirety of Manjo consists only of random notes thrown out on a flute, lots of pointless guitar picking, and drums that pound out sounds but no rhythm whatsoever. The few times that Haino sings, the sound is more reminiscent of someone having their vocal cords ripped out than actual singing. It almost feels like every instrument in this “group” is battling for supremacy, and the listener is the one who loses in the end. There is no conjunction between musical lines; there aren’t even musical lines to speak of.
Chaos can be a good thing, depending on how it’s used. As an average listener, I can deal with chaos when it has a purpose. For example, X Japan’s “Art of Life” features a long piano solo that degrades into chaos in the middle of the full-length version of the song. But that is an example of well-done chaos, because that chaos has meaning. It represents the distraction of everyday existence, while underneath the chaos runs the steady rhythm of life. Manjo Icchi wa Muko has all the chaos, but none of the meaning, and so this album becomes merely headache-inducing noise rather than actual music. Besides, the “Art of Life” chaos lasts for only a few minutes, while this chaos lasts for an entire hour-long album.
I’ve read reviews that state that this album is brilliant. To be honest, it is not. This is not music. It has no purpose and no beauty. It is a mish-mash of notes with no musical sense whatsoever. None of these songs have titles, which is appropriate since not one of them conveys any kind of emotion or tale to be named. I could barely force myself to finish each song, and when I did, I couldn’t tell that I’d actually moved on from one song to another. I don’t like to give such a low rating to any album, but Manjo Icchi wa Muko is merely noise that made me appreciate silence more.
THE BAD
Track One
This bout of painful noise, the first on the album, features Haino singing. He sounds more like a dying cat. I was, however, in total sympathy with that scream that he makes towards the end, because that’s exactly the sound I wanted to make while listening to this album.
Track Two
Each song - to use the term loosely - is so reminiscent of the next that this comment applies to all of them. Track two is as musical as that annoying garage band next door to you, whose members lack all kind of musical sense and skill and only seem to play to make noise.
Track Three
The third track not only has the pointless guitar-picking and drum-banging, it also gives us, the hapless listeners, the dubious pleasure of hearing the screeching of a microphone going haywire.
The Rating: 0
Reviewed by: dheu
