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Japanische Kampfhörspiele: Bilder fressen strom

04/01/10 || Habakuk

“Pictures devour power” is what the title of this new album from the officially best active band with German lyrics, approved by the Habakuk committee, translates to. Is it necessary to understand German to appreciate their efforts? No. Does it make this album more enjoyable? Definitely. JaKa, in addition to their pretty unique approach at a combination of punk-infused death/grind with whatever samples they dig up, have always been about the lyrics. The brilliant booklet artwork (more so than the cover) which can be found on their page can only give hints as to how much these guys despise what’s around them, as the lyrics reek of insidious cynicism and ridicule against our beloved system. Basically, they take a piss on everything that’s related to gainful employment and living in a capitalist society. From the inside, as they use and ironically abuse the concepts of the business and advertising world so well that I’m absolutely sure some of these guys must have been involved in it for a while. They even printed the fucken default MS Powerpoint pie chart onto the actual CD which is such a genius move that I shall hold it in high esteem forevermore.

With that out of the way, on to the stuff that not only fellow countrymen and aficionados will be interested in. Said disc contains 27 songs usually between 45 seconds and 3 minutes long and packed with great riffing, thick groove and an equally punchy, yet subtly improved production (compared to their last full-length entitled “Rauchen und Yoga”) to boot.

A more important factor is that unlike on that one, awesome songs are no longer the exception to the rule, but instead JaKa seem to have found their old songwriting spirit again, albeit more death metal-oriented than ever before. Which means the tempo is a bit slower, blast beats are used only as complementary elements, heaviness and groove are more prominent, chaos less so. Not even the 10 second songs are your standard a-dime-a-dozen blastfests that flood every other grind album, instead most of them are comprised of one or two pretty good riffs and a few vocal lines which serves the collage-like nature of the whole album.
One or two riffs seem to be based on some of their earlier material, but to be honest, that really doesn’t matter as there are enough genuine riffs to be found, and also, as long as they’re good riffs, I don’t care if they used the same basic idea before.

What hasn’t changed in principle throughout the band’s career is the odd couple of high squeals by Markus Hoff and ultra-deep growls courtesy of Martin Freund. While the former may take some getting used to (especially if you don’t understand what’s being sung), the latter are nothing short of awesome. Also, the bass sound, which is pretty similar to Blood Red Throne’s more recent outputs deserves special mention as it really gets to shine once the double-bass barrage stops. Speaking of which, the drums are tight and awesome as always. For some reason, and I’m guessing it’s more in the production and overall sound than in the music, I’m getting a very vague Misery Index vibe that I can’t really explain, as both bands do have a more than slightly different approach. Anyway, if you like Misery Index, I’d say check this out. Anti-commercial fuck-alls that they are, the band is putting up the whole album on MySpace.

If you’re a lazy-ass when it comes to forming an opinion, just read my final verdict and pretend you’ve come up with it yourself: Keeping this from being an awesome album but merely a very good one is the absence of a few killer tunes that are able to stand out from the very good, but not mindblowing pack as well as some more hints of the whacked-out craziness of former recordings. The way it is, I’ll have to content myself with a definite step up on a general level from the predecessor, which had these few standout tracks, but nothing else.

Information
Released: 2010
Label: Unundeux
Website: Japanische Kampfhörspiele MySpace
Band
Markus Hoff: vocals
Martin Freund: vocals
René Hauffe: guitars
Klaus Nicodem: guitars
Marco Bachmann: bass
Christof Kather: drums, vocals
Willi Wucher: guest vocals

Tracklist
01. Die Schlachtung
02. Die Kampagne
03. Supermacht
04. Milchkrieg
05. Minderleister
06. Deutschland sucht den Superstar
07. Sorgsam durcheinandergebracht
08. Tod im Tank
09. Jochbeinbruch
10. Everything is fine
11. Wie geht nochmal ficken?
12. Goldene Mitte
13. Rentnerparadies
14. Lebendgewicht
15. Fresssucht
16. Dement
17. Effizienz
18. Deutsche
19. Mimikri
20. Der Arsch
21. Angriff auf die Zivilisation
22. Auto
23. Schmerzrakete
24. Reinigung
25. Links
26. Nachahmer
27. Emotionen

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