Album Reviews

Album Reviews: Shion by Mucc

There's a subsection of Americans who have a raging lust for all things Japanese. They harbor a fascination for the fashion, culture and lifestyle of the cutting edge Far East. If you are one of those hapless folks who covets Japanese culture, yet you can't exactly cash in frequent flyer miles and take a trip to Tokyo to indulge in all that Japan has to offer firsthand, relax. We have a solution for you and it comes in the form of MUCC , a Japanese hard rock band with a detectable nu wave influence. Think "Hungry Like the Wolf"-era Duran Duran getting into a knife fight with Nine Inch Nails and that'll give you an idea of what MUCC doles out on Shion , a moody and broody hard rock album with dark and daunting industrial underpinnings.

"Nuritsubusunara Enji" snarls with a nasty riff, while "Fukurou No Yurikago" is structured more traditionally in the verse-chorus-verse format. "Fuzz" is a rivethead's anthem, thanks to its dancey, neo-nu wave nature. The song could easily work at a warehouse rave where the clientele is cloaked in all black and never smiles! The lyrics on Shion are sung in the band's native tongue, but the language barrier does not distract from the intensity and the severity of the music, which operates on a mechanized, cyberized battery.

The members of MUCC have been doing their industrial aggro homework and have obviously studied the sonic texts of American bands like Fear Factory. However, MUCC builds upon the foundation and douses their sound with rampant pop melodies and sprawling moments. MUCC end up as architects of a style of music that can inspire headbanging and dancing, which on paper, would appear impossible! So big ups to the band for taking measured risks, which result in a uniquely hybridized sound that's never homogenous.

— Amy Sciarretto
12.31.08