Perfume is a Japanese technopop group made of three girls, each one uglier than the next. Listen to them once, you’ll hate it. Listen to them twice, you’ll hate it. Listen to them a third time, and they will get stuck in your cerebral cortex and come back to haunt you every time your neurons are idle. Their music is really what their name suggests: hypnotizing, volatile (as in high vapor pressure) and frankly, a little bit annoying.

Asia has always been at the forefront of creating no-talent pop groups based on looks alone, but with Perfume, they failed in even that. The girls are not even close to being as attractive as say, Wonder Girls (of Korea), and from what I can tell from their interviews they’re dumber than my left toe, but whoever’s writing the songs for Perfume is a synth genius. It hasn’t been too many years since I started appreciating processed music (largely in thanks to Daft Punk and Infected Mushroom), but man, the vo-coded harmonies of Perfume will get stuck in your head faster than Come On Eileen.

Which makes me wonder: how did they pick these girls? Perhaps they had to pick the most bland voices so they can vocode them more easily. Now that would be quality casting.

I have listened to a fair share of Japanese rock in my life, but recently I have been obsessed with this song, titled “Koe (trans: voice)” by the Back Horn. The song is pure genius, with very heavy, catchy riffs, melodic leads and coal-truck-driving dynamics. While the music scene in the West has been sucked dry by trance-pop and rap (with exceptions to bands like Wolfmother and the Tragically Hip), it is great to see Asia getting back into the bare-bones rock ‘n’ roll in the 21st century. Bands like Jang Giha and the Faces (funk/folk) in Korea and Tokyo Jihen (jazz-influenced heavy rock) in Japan have gained immense popularity, keeping me in my Asian music phase a little too long this time. So come on, you originators of rock ‘n’ roll, let’s go back to the good old days of unprocessed music.

I absolutely love trivia. I especially love to learn about the origins of things, like where the expression “balls to the wall” came from, what movie Family Guy is referencing, etc.. So you can imagine  my excitement when I happened across The Planets Suite by composer Gustav Holst. I first learned about the work from a recent Japanese hit that set words to “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity,” but what really got me giddy was a riff from “Mars, the Bringer of War” that sounded familiar. It is used by Boston College marching band (which I almost joined) during football and hockey games to intimidate the other team during offense, and learning where it came from really struck that nerdy chord in my heart. I am also convinced that the piece is either used in Gladiator or at least provided a heavy inspiration for the soundtrack.

It took me shamefully long to blog about this awesome film. As an avid classic rock fan, Pirate Radio hit all the right notes for me. The very minimal plot line – a bunch of music fanatics struggling against the government – holds up with interesting subplots that never bore, but honestly, who could resist such an awesome soundtrack? The opening sequence is set to the Kinks’ classic “All Day and All of the Night,” which could not be more fitting, as the Davies brothers are the true pioneers of rock who are often credited with introducing the distorted guitar sound to the genre (the myth has it that Ray Davies took a knife to a poor amp, shredding the speaker cones to create that crunchy riff). The opening is very classy even from a designer’s point of view, with well-timed cuts and simple graphics.

While the entire movie is set to a commendable catalog of early, foundational rock bands such as the Turtles, the Yardbirds and the Who, they do stretch the plotline a little bit by never explaining exactly how they evade the government plots to destroy them. The ending credits did include a Taylor Swift album cover, a blasphemy in my opinion to include among actually great albums like the Who’s Tommy and Queen’s A Night at the Opera, but I liked the film so much that I decided to let it slide. Go see it! Oh, and it will make you wanna smoke cigarettes.

The Viking is a metal band from Scotia, NY. I know the bassist from high school, so I happened to stop by their MySpace one day. The music they produce is highly refreshing, although I’ve never been a huge fan of screaming vocals. But their music sounds incredibly fun to play, and their videos testify to that. They’re starting to post guitar tabs for their songs online, for which I am delighted.

So I was bored today and fiddled around with some Viking-themed graphics, the above being a bit of a Frank Miller tribute. The Viking already seems to have a logo made out for them but… I felt like drawing something badass.

(And since YouTube took this off…Here)

So when Wolfmother came out, what, 4 years ago? I totally thought we finally had a new band to rave about. The vocalist/guitarist Andrew Stockdale sounds like a cross between Robert Plant and the Mars Volta’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala, and is possibly the only singer to hit the mainstream in the past decade who doesn’t scream, growl or whine on the microphone. Such potential! Their first album was a full-throttle, pentatonic-charged, in-your-face rock. My band at the time was also mad that they took such an awesome name, because we were seriously considering adopting a name with the word “wolf” in it.

They were on Conan last night, and I was mildly disappointed by their new single, “New Moon Rising.” I say mildly, because it’s still a very catchy song with bluesy lyrics and enough energy. My complaint mainly concerns the bassist. I mean, what is he there for, really? The bassline is an exact replication of the guitar line, and sure it gives a punch to the melody, but done throughout the entire song, it actually takes away from the dynamics.

I try not to be biased when it comes to music, but for the type of song this is, I really wished the bass would give it more layers. For the number of musicians in the band, this new single has as much complexity as say, the White Stripes. Stockdale could just throw on an octave pedal and it would sound exactly the same, and that to me is a waste. They have produced an alternative rock song with a classic-rock voice, which… I guess should be commended in its own right, but I expected much more.

Wolfmother really needs to step it up. They can’t expect to get away with diddling around up and down the pentatonic scale anymore, because they did that already with their first album! Of course, I would have to listen to their new album in its entirety to judge them. But alas, I really wanted them to become the next Zeppelin and breathe some life into the stale music market. Hmph.