MELT-BANANA

Many are those who claim to be doing something original. Many are those who are also, unquestionably, talking shit. But a quick glance at the last 30 years does throw up a few names that have given hope to enemies of the generic. Japan's MELT-BANANA were unique when they started, and three decades of persistently subversive what-the-fuck-is-that-ness later, the Tokyo terrors are still at it.

Back in the early '90s, MELT-BANANA were greedily embraced by fans of left-field and extreme music. Their early records sounded like a bomb going off: warped grindcore vignettes, delivered at lightning speed but fueled by the quirky angularity of noise rock and other avant-garde sources, and topped with Yasuko Onuki's shrill yelp. MELT-BANANA sounded like nothing else on Earth. And with each successive album, EP and other obscure release, the duo (Onuki and guitarist Ichiro Agata are the banana's enduring core) have added more layers to their genre-ignoring sound, stretched it to the point of formless collapse, and sharpened it up and made it simultaneously more accessible and more perverse. Their last studio album 2013's "Fetch" bore little resemblance to their early records, and sounded like some futuristic, anti-pop experiment, with catchy tunes that emerged from barrages of wickedly unfamiliar noise. As a result, any attempts to predict what "3+5" is likely to sound like are doomed to failure. MELT-BANANA do things differently.

They also do things quickly. "3+5" last for less than half an hour and feels more like an impromptu noisecore drive-by than a sustained attempt to re-establish the Japanese band's prominence. But within that brief flurry of discombobulating chaos, the ongoing brilliance of their still-unique music is abundantly clear. Agata's guitar never sounds like a guitar, Onuki's vocals are like needles puncturing a fog of complacency, and each song erupts and corrupts in its own euphoric, gleefully abrasive way. "Code" rattles and throbs like a runaway Krautrock steamroller, electronic squiggles bursting from every crevice and every crescendo slapped down with brute force. It's noisy as hell, but "Code" is a pop song too. MELT-BANANA have always been happy to ignore the rules, and while there are plenty of people out there mixing electronics and noise, nobody else has effected a perfect symbiotic integration like this. Programmed drums clatter and pulse with robotic persistence, but the guitars that smother them sound like an army of dayglo cyborg plushies being fed through a tree shredder.

Songs like the frantic "Puzzle" and the psychedelic hell-techno hardcore of "Case D" are breathtakingly berserk, but joyous and exhilarating too. "Stopgap" goes full pelt and employs big metal riffs and scattershot post-rock guitar scree, with Onuki battling for space amid all the bleeps and bangs. In contrast, "Scar" begins as a rumbling rush of emotion, before veering off course, descending into atonal chaos, clattering furiously with joyous intent, and then soaring away on a bizarre but gorgeous chorus hook. The breakneck wrongness of the "Fetch" era is taken to new levels of eccentricity on the fiery, two-minute "Flipside". "Hex" initially threatens to take a similar approach, but instead opts for a rubber-limbed, perpetual wave of trashy, garage punk and mad-eyed synth abuse. For a few brief seconds, MELT-BANANA seem to be playing rock 'n' roll, albeit of a very strange kind. "Whisperer" harnesses the organic rasp of old-school keyboards, as Onuki spins around delightedly amidst a confusion of riffs, beats and videogame static; and closer "Seeds" snaps the curtain shut with a real sense of celebration, as abominable blastbeats and sparkly eyed, slim-hipped alt-rock collide in a shower of microchips and broken teeth.

These people are crazy, and the world is a much better and more exciting place with them in it. MELT-BANANA are true originals and "3+5" is an invigorating blast of fresh air.