In Which I Bloviate About Melt-Banana

I first heard Melt-Banana when a fellow grocery store warm body lent me their Scratch or Stitch release. It held my interest for a few listens: an album full of layered ray gun guitar effects, fuzz bass pounding, ADHD drumming, insane cat-bark yipyap vocals, song titles bordering on Engrish hilarity. Something that was experimental but not boring or self-indulgent. Even if that sort of thing repulses you, you just kind of have to listen for a little bit to experience the trainwreck.

But there were some fatal flaws to keep me from really enjoying it. It was lo-fi and I was in the midst of an obsession with metalcore, a genre that tends to enjoy higher production values. Additionally I was going through an irritating yet mild “Christian-only music” cloistering phase—a fever that neophytes to the scene can easily catch.

I forgot about them until recently, when for some reason I listened to “Cracked Plaster Cast” from Bambi’s Dilemma once, and the once turned into listening to the whole holocaust of an album about a few dozen times and counting. And this turned into exploring their back discography. They had changed into a more accessible rock sound while retaining the weirdness aesthetic.

Please bear in mind, though, that this is a relative change. They are no more traditional than they were in their loopy years. It’s more accurate to say that their songs can be slightly longer and have more structure. That’s about it. Yasuko’s vocals have more diversity but are still not quite punk, not quite rock, not quite grindcore, not quite rap. It’s like she just said, “You know what? F— it. I’ll keep doing it but someone else figure it out.”

Below is a short documentary and live set from a recent tour. Hit play and fall in love with the time-traveling plasma rifle rainbow.