Shonen Knife
Super Group
Rating: 2.0/5.0
Label: Good Charamel Records
Super Group is very much an album by a band going through the motions, as relevant to the pop canon as whatever excuse the Rolling Stones come up with to tour the world yet again. Technical skills are there, the production is suitable and the songs are still glossed up in a charming way on the surface, but the hooks feel forgettable and the playing is strictly by the numbers on nearly every song. Shonen Knife seem to have lost the joy that went into the legendary singles they made for the likes of K and Sub Pop back in the late ’80s, releases that bridged the gap between the former’s twee invasion and the latter’s sludge punk rumblings.
Part of the blame may lay on the group’s ever changing line-up, which has seen the loss of two of its founding members, the death of a drummer and the resignation of that drummer’s replacement, turning Shonen Knife into essentially an outlet for sole remaining founding member Naoko Yamano and guests. It doesn’t help either that Yamano, now nearing 50, still writes songs with titles like “Muddy Bubbles Hell” and “Deer Biscuits.”
Oh, “Deer Biscuits.” What is there to say about a song with a chorus like “Deer, deer, deer biscuits/ Smells like soy bean flower” and musically sounds like a cheap karaoke version of Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It?” It’s as good as any a place to start an analysis of what in particular is wrong about Super Group. For every seemingly classic Shonen Knife song on the album, like the eponymous opening track or “BBQ Party,” both of which wouldn’t be out of place on a Ramones tribute album, there’s a failed genre experiment like “Deer Biscuits.”
Almost as bad is “Time Warp,” which seems to want to start a Madchester revival all on its own. I know the Stone Roses still have some fans left out there somewhere, but for the rest of us who forgot why that particular scene never really took off, “Time Warp” offers all the answers. Although, I do admit I don’t remember any Stone Roses song that featured a Judas Priest-like solo coming out of nowhere during the bridges, so I suppose the track isn’t a total loss, the juxtaposition of Madchester-style layered sonics against the heavy metal solo as entertaining as you’d imagine.
Super Group really only succeeds as proof that artists need to know when to say when. What may have worked for Shonen Knife when they were a group of young women trying to introduce punk to indifferent Japanese teens, or when they were traveling the world and trying to make good on the “international” part of the International Pop Overthrow just comes off as crass and lifeless when the band is one old timer surrounded by veteran studio musicians. Cute genre experiments are now horrific train wrecks and Ramones-by-the-numbers pop punk now sounds bland. Why tarnish a legacy for a few quick bucks?
by Morgan Davis
