Japandroids - Post-Nothing Review

On the face of it, Vancouver’s Japandroids should prove an inspiration to every fat, underachieving rock slob under the sun. You see, Brian King and David Prowse are - in some respects - patently just a couple of schlubs who wanted a fun, dumb rawk out, as a fun, dumb rawk band. Only, they couldn't be bothered to assemble the personnel required to do so, the recruitment drive stalling with one very large distortion peddle and the pair's decision to 'sing' themselves. Lyrics? Well, we'll deal with them more later, but certainly they involve a huge number of Vancouver-based puns and in-jokes (see particularly ‘Darkness On The Edge Of Gastown’). Oh, and they named their band Japandroids, ferchissakes.

And it's worked out for them. The thing is, it's REALLY worked out for them. As in, other boneidle slackers who just wanna mess about with dirrrty riffs should probably muster the energy to ponder how Japandroids manage to be so damn affecting....full text A guitar-and-drums duo from Vancouver, Japandroids crank out eardrum-bursting noise rock that takes cues from alt-rock vets such as Hüsker Dü as well as contemporary bands like No Age. On their debut disc, Post-Nothing, guitarist Brian King and drummer David Prowse deliver a rush of fuzzed-out rockers and stoner-metal grooves, plus an awesomely bummed-out drone called "I Quit Girls." Unlike most arty noise bands, these guys don't take themselves too seriously. Instead, they get rip-roaring drunk ("Rockers East Vancouver") and wonder what it'd be like to "French-kiss some French girls."...full text As I come to the end of my first year at University, leaving a trail of smashed pint-glasses, broken teeth and unidentifiable pink goo behind me, I find myself in a state of reflection. The small, family-orientated town I spent 16 years of my life in – uncovering every shortcut, exploring every forest, kicking every fallen pinecone along the way – had been swapped for a huge, intimidating, student-heaving city. The shortcuts were traded for travellators, the forests for shopping centres, the pinecones for empty Carling cans. Yet these were the things I’d dream of while camping with friends in the heath, staring up to the stars permanently frozen in their darkness. I knew I would be terrified yet I couldn’t wait to leave. The freedom, the madness, the unknown. In my head I must have been writing this record. Japandroids' (or JPNDRDS) first full length – Post-Nothing – is the perfect embodiment of the post-teen angst, excitement, anxiety and fuck-it artlessness of finally packing your bags and moving on, wherever the destination as long as it’s at least a million miles away from home.

Describing the sound of Japandroids is not exactly a difficult thing to do, but it seems a little unfair as their on-paper conventions could cause some readers to sigh, roll eyes and wave their miniature ‘I-will-not-succumb-to-trends!’ flags in the air. Yes, they have a two man DIY punk ethic, creating lo-fi noise/garage punk rock with mega poppy hooks. And yes, they will immediately give off vibes of fuzz lovers No Age, Wavves, Times New Viking and all the others that are wagging their tongues out the window of this distorted speeding bandwagon. But by no means should they be carelessly categorized as fickle trend-hoppers, with one finger on the pulse and, as long as it stays there, the other on an effects pedal. This is more than that. The brilliance of Japandroids is their ability to tap into that rush we all feel when we’re about to do something risky, unpredictable, reckless, even stupid. It’s that rush, that uncontrollable electric boom that gives the band the energy needed to surge away from the plain fuzz of the first ten seconds of ‘The Boys Are Leaving Town’ and never look back. “Will we find our way back home?” the boys ask, the anxiety fiddling with the strings at the back of the mind, but for the rest of the record, it seems like they couldn’t care less....full text