Most Most by Most
by Ian Simmons
[ cdreviews ]
A glorious blast of scrotum-sanding punk if ever I heard one! Most's minimally-titled second album continues their return to the basics of 70s three-chord punk of the fast, skittery Generation X/Buzzcocks variety, and does so with élan and style. Led by Phew, a veteran of the 70s Osaka punk scene, where her band Aunt Sally were among the most prominent and influential, they wisely do not try and recreate those glories exactly, but return to the essence of what made such music effective and revisit it with enhanced musical skills and production techniques. Rather than blowing the music up into a bloated parody à la solo Billy Idol, they do this successfully, resisting the temptation towards flashy solos and high gloss sheen.
Given that the vocals are in Japanese, I have absolutely no idea what they are about, but they certainly work in the context of no-nonsense punk. I have always thought that Japanese was a language particularly suited to punk. Despite being subtle and tonal, it translates effectively into high-speed rant, as, unusually, does French. It has always been cited as one of the reasons why French rock has been so consistently poor over the years - too many syllables in the words and too fluid a diction, but in the early days of punk French bands had prominence on the London scene unrivalled since, with Stinky Toys and particularly Metal Urbain making their presence felt. Listen to a Metal Urbain record and you see just how effective French can be for articulating punk. So it is with Most and Japanese. This is a ferociously successful album that shows a clean pair of heels to both modern punk fakers and creaky old 70s bands hitting the reformation trail. If only British punk veterans were still making music this snappy rather than fooling around on reality TV (even if it is to fund chimp sanctuaries). Most excellent!
