Japanther - Tut Tut Now Shake Ya Butt

Album Review by Ewen Millar | 22 Apr 2009
Album title: Tut Tut Now Shake Ya Butt
Artist: Japanther
Label: Truth Cult
Release date: Out Now

Ah, Brooklyn - home to fabulous-looking art-school-frequenting 19-year-olds with crazy haircuts who party all the time to a jumping live scene, and have way more sex, drugs, and general fun, than you do. Japanther are one of those bands and have always managed to embrace the dual aspects of their hometown, playing scuzzy, lo-fi punk (presumably at guerilla gigs in abandoned warehouses) but making it cool, with enough of a hint of pop to get all those teenaged fists pumping in the air. That is, until this album, which creatively misfires by having producer Penny Rimbaud (Crass) indulge in several performance-poetry pieces that take up roughly half the album. It might seem odd criticising an art-school band for doing something different, but when the poetry is unintentionally comparable to the ramblings of the narrator from Count Duckula, perhaps Japanther should have queried whether it sounded challenging rather than just plain awful.

http://www.japanther.com