Label: Double Denim
Highlights: "Waking Up," "Graduation," "Big City," "Lipslap," "Paintbrush"
Have you ever been eating Laffy Taffy or sour gummy worms, perhaps on a lazy Tuesday afternoon with nothing going on and wondered, “I wonder what this sounds like?”
Three British teenagers have decided to answer your query with the most colorful, sugary, synth-poppy bonanza since Chvrches’ mainstream debut in 2011.
Much like their antecedents, they utilize the same format: a frontwoman preceding a drum sampler and a Casio keyboard, operated by the other two members of the band. Kero Kero Bonito crafted something rich and habit-forming with this studio album right here. “Bonito Generation” is so weirdly unique that even if hyper-bright pop beats and bubblegum lyrics aren't your thing... you might briefly forget that they aren't your thing.
Yet, too much candy is bad for you. This album gets on my nerves now by how jovially adolescent it is. KKB songs have themes, or some kind of loose off-the-wall narrative on par with content for children's books.
“Waking Up” is a song about waking up and starting your day. Another song is about taking a break and not doing anything, and it's called “Break.” There is a song about trampolines... called “Trampoline.”
Can you guess what “Paintbrush” is about? The main offender is the song called “Heard a Song” that is about songs getting stuck in your head, because it's forged to get stuck in peoples’ heads. Those crafty scoundrels.
Despite it all, I often fall back on this album for a myriad of reasons. The video game vibe that the tracks have weaved into their presence is innoculating — there's a blatant Mario Kart sample in track three and it's delectable, even if just for the few seconds it presents itself.
The drums are programmed so affluently between the dense synths and vocals, sounds are weaved just right and mixed addictingly well. Perry's vocals switch from Japanese to English on a whim, which is something you're not gonna get with “Every Open Eye.” Not to cheap shot Chvrches though, but it's hard to squirm out of the schema they set for themselves in 2011.
Kero Kero Bonito do that and more, effortlessly, with an “Alice in Wonderland” trip-infused bungee cord. Their presentation and music videos are maelstroms of colors and silliness that puts the audio in perspective.
There's so much behind this record and it never fails to cheer me up, even slightly. Perry's lyrics are so whimsically ignorant, she writes like if Cormac McCarthy had a prolonged residency in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Overpacked beats like “Waking Up,” spearheaded by a symphonic horn sample that, in many other cases, would supplant an angry hip-hop beat of some sort.
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Her vocal melodies aren't the star of the show here, as would be the case with most of Lauren Mayberry's work.
“I can't believe I have to rap on tracks so you get it.”
She quips that on track seven “Lipslap,” yelling over the mezzanine of an acid house beat reminiscent of SOPHIE's more tame work.
If you're a cynical music enthusiast, this album is your nightmare.
Yet “Bonito Generation” in the current indie climate is fresh and intriguing. It's hard to dislike this album because, for one, it's so unbearably happy, like Owl City level of delusion — and two: These artists are very talented.
You can hear how intricate songs are from KKB's earlier work on tracks like the fan-favorite “Flamingo” released in 2014, to the song “Sick Beat” which is, literally, a chopped up Mario Kart track under a japanese rap.
“Bonito Generation” sounds like KKB deposited a bushel of candy and ‘90s video games into a blender next to a few microphones and wrote elementary lyrics to whatever sugary, chaotic result was bound to occur.
And it frustrates me how much I've been enjoying it.
Audrin Baghaie is the music editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at dailylobomusic@gmail.com or on Twitter @AudrinTheOdd.
