There are songs by Japanese noise-rockers Melt-Banana that are shorter than the time it takes to read this sentence. It’s taken a long time to hear those sweet, sonic bursts around these parts, though, with its last appearance in Madison more than three years ago. Wednesday, however, Melt-Banana paid a long overdue visit to the High Noon Saloon.
Starting off the night was Right Arm Severed, who functioned more as a performance art spectacle than as a band. The “set,” as it were, consisted in its entirety of three male members — dressed in cheerleader skirts — waving pompoms and dancing without much enthusiasm to Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” its “DJ” eventually mixing the song into an ominous, swirling distortion. The members also dipped their limbs into a conveniently placed trash can filled with red paint and proceeded to smear it on each others’ faces. With that, the set ended to scant applause, and the group left to sheepishly clean up after itself.
Next up were Madison’s Czarbles, who seem to have come from an alternate reality where jam bands are afraid of the sun and hide in their basements all day playing Contra and Super Metroid. The band’s video game progressive rock seemed to be all about the journey, and the angular riffs and sudden tempo shifts that made up the instrumentals never arrived at a destination, often arbitrarily ending whenever the band seemed to get tired of playing. Still, the band has obviously learned a thing or two from all that gaming, as its trebly energetic music made seemingly mundane concert activities like nursing a drink and waiting for the next band to go on a pixilated, twitch-action adventure. All in all, though, it still felt like you were just a onlooker as your brother hogged the controller.
After a lengthy wait, comprised mostly of standing around and looking at the cables, the enigmatically named Sauce Party finally deemed the audience worthy of hearing its set. Draping American flags over the turntable decks and wearing cowboy hats and button-down black shirts, the duo performed a distorted, old-time baritone recording of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” while simultaneously drowning it out with what resembled cicada shrieks and the deep rumble of launching jets. The pair would sometimes suddenly scream into an electric pickup or head-bang for a few moments, but spent most of the time stone-faced at the turntables, resembling a more dignified version of Wolf Eyes. Eventually the song transformed into a deep growl, ending in the shrill feedback of a sine wave.
Regrettably, few in attendance seemed to be responding positively to Sauce Party, but that didn’t stop the pair from leaving the stage and ordering shots, then hopping back up and droning on an effects-laden acoustic guitar while muttering some darkly unintelligible and unquestionably insightful words, then pitch-shifting it all into more shrieking chaos.
Despite such odd bedfellows preceding them, few must have been prepared for the sonic intensity that ensued once Melt-Banana took the stage. Touring behind its 2007 release Bambi”s DillemaDilemma, the band’s first album in four years, Melt-Banana kicked the night off with some massive, 500–pound, arena-rock riffs. The band then plunged into a set of rocket-blast hardcore punk, forgoing much of the metallic preponderance and electronic experimentation of earlier albums like Cell-Scape. The grueling pace set the adulating crowd-moshing and stage-diving in a frenzied glee while, farther back, Halloween seemed to have come early for a small, black-clad group accoutered in impeccable Gothic Lolita fashion (take your everyday American mall-goth and combine it with a cute, childish aesthetic) who were content to dance by themselves to the band’s battering-ram beat.
Ichirou Agata, the face-masked guitarist and wielder of no fewer than 14 effects pedals, achieved a rare guitar-tone that both thrashed on “Blank Page of the Blind” and was downright tuneful on Dilemma tracks like “The Call of the Vague.” Lyricist Yasuko Onuki and bassist Rika mm’ also held their own, delivering a fierce sonic assault despite their small statures. Onuki, in particular, was a complete revelation, burning with fire-white intensity as she squealed out bellicose, indecipherable vocals like a pissed-off Powerpuff Girl, her eyes all the while staring off at some sort of unseen, malevolent force in the distance and her body slamming forward on each beat.
In between songs, she spoke in near-English with an indefatigable charm, constantly thanking the audience and serving up valuable words of wisdom. “Do you like sushi?” she asked the crowd, then stating matter-of-factly, “Sushi is good for your ears” — words to take to heart after the permanent damage caused by Melt-Banana’s auditory abuse. Then the band proceeded into its traditional medley of six short songs, raging from the epic length of 40 seconds to a mere five-second blip, followed by a deformed, barely recognizable cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” Only a few songs and a brief encore plagued with technical issues more, and the night was over, as a group of entreating fans called out for more while the rest of the audience, buzzed and excited, made its exit into the chill, late-night air.
