POLYSICS - What's This??? Album Review

POLYSICS is an internationally loved electro-punk band formed in 1997. "What's This???" is their... well... They have a lot of albums, let's call this the 20th. Before I take a look at this album, I have to admit that I haven't listened to anything POLYSICS has done in the last eight or so years. That's about six albums worth of material I'm missing, at least. Not that I'm a professional on the rest of their discography, but anyway. POLYSICS is a great band and this is a new album by them. I'm gonna talk about it.

After the intro track "Introduction!" (there have been a lot of those lately, huh?) we get into the REAL first song, "SUN ELECTRIC". I love the pre-chorus punk breakdown, and the vocoder-ridden chorus is just lovely. Even more important is the next track, the perfectly unstructured "Alps Lun Lun". The verses are super fun and loose, and the chorus is incredibly catchy. Out of nowhere, the song slows down before exploding into chaos again. If I had any doubts that POLYSICS would still be amazing almost 20 years later, this song smashed those doubts into the ground. The energy stays up with the next song "Funny Attitude" with some rap-inspired vocals and a little bit of video game synths and, once again, an amazing chorus. POLYSICS definitely has a penchant for amazing choruses.

At this point I'm taking a look at the track listing; there are 19 songs on this album. How can POLYSICS possibly keep this up? I think I might actually go track-by-track here, just to follow the album's progession. The next song is "8 Beat Division", which is pretty much all the things I said about the other songs. The chorus melody is as expected, amazing. Still this early on I'm already running out of things to say. "Nail" has some awesomely deep BUCK-TICK-inspired vocals over some slightly harder rock, culminating in a high-pitched chorus not unlike a Melt-Banana song (I mean not THAT high, but there's some similarity there). "Dig Down!" jumps from hyperactive techno punk to... slightly slower hyperactive techno punk? I love the high energy of this album (and of POLYSICS in general), but I wouldn't say no to a nice slow song around here to catch my breath.

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And you know what? The next song, "Shunkashuutou", might be about as slow as POLYSICS can get. It has a great bassy groove going and it's nice and danceable without being too much of an anxiety attack. It also has the old catchy chorus, because POLYSICS. It actually is a nice breath of fresh air from an album I've been loving but has also worn me out by this point. The next song, "Take Away", does exactly that. We're back to hyperactive techno punk with another great vocoder-infused verse. It's fun, but does get a little boring halfway through. "Be A Human" would probably be pretty fun live, and maybe even a good closing track. It's been 10 songs now; this is a full-length album and we're only halfway done.

"Flying V" is slightly slower, but like a POLYSICS version of slightly slower, so it's still a bit hyper. The opening to "Robot Mime Mime" sounds like we're about to start playing Mortal Kombat or something. It has some really cute synths though and this song is actually revitalizing my interest in the album where I was starting to get tired. Finally we're back to something the last couple songs were missing: THE CATCHY CHORUS! Surprisingly, those don't get old. "1.2.3.4" starts off thankfully calm, sounding like a slowed-down version of a song out of DOOM. The vocals are pretty cute, and it's not too crazy. It picks up in a pretty natural way about halfway through, and it's really a nice song. It has a little more structure than what we've been hearing, even if it's super repetetive.

From the intro bass on "Dopple Gokko", I actually thought this was a Melt-Banana song at first. It's not. Somebody sounds like a robotic chicken during the chorus? I don't know what's happening. It's kinda fun. I'm getting tired, but we're down to the last five songs now. "Hurry Up" is great! It might actually be, heaven forbid... the POLYSICS version of a ballad??? It has some summer song synths (you'll understand if you listen to it) and the vocals are drenched in vocoder the whole way through. It's actually a pretty song too, I like this one a lot. "Vow Vow" is fun with a catchy chorus. "299" is fun with a catchy chorus. "Tempo Tempo Tempo" is fun, with... is there a chorus on this song? There's some kind of breakdown that's for sure. The tempo changes a lot; clever name. Get it? "Goody-Goody" is the last song. The last song! And you know, I'm pretty worn out, but this has actually been a really amazing album so far. Yeah, it has those points where I get a little bit tired, but there are 19 songs on it so that's to be expected. as for "Goody-Goody", well, it's fun. It has a catchy chorus. You know what though? I love it. The melody is so great here, I just can't possibly not love it. And that's how I feel about this whole album.

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This is a long album. I mean, this is a LONG album. A really, really long album. It's understandable if it's a little hard to get through; I had some trouble too. But in the end, it's not a bad album at all. The other band this year who released an album longer than they should have was Gesu no Kiwami Otome, and they absolutely DID NOT pull it off; it was some of their worst work of their career. POLYSICS pulled it off quite nicely. I love "What's This???", flaws and all. It actually has some of my new favorite POLYSICS songs on it. All that's left now is to wait for the US tour I desperately hope is coming with this album.

-Justin

Favorites: SUN ELECTRIC, Alps Lun Lun, Shunkashuutou, Be A Human, Robot Mime Mime, 1.2.3.4, Hurry Up, Goody-Goody

POLYSICS Is:
HAYASHI - Guitar, Vocals, Programming
FUMI - Bass, Synthesizer, Vocals
YANO - Drums

For More Information:
Website: http://www.polysics.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/POLYSICS/260419960659129