Merry dub their own sound "retrock" -- i.e., retro rock -- but while the sound does indeed draw on well-established styles, it's still a fresh addition to the Japanese music scene. Merry have outsiders' fresh disrespect for genre evolution, hitting squarely on the point where rockabilly, punk, garage rock, and jazz overlap, and ornamenting the result with such fitting bits as surf, '70s cinematic pop, hair metal, and then some more rock & roll. The band's fellow countrymen Sambomaster ply similar wares, but that unit is a trio and opts for a straightforward approach, while Merry, being a five-piece collective, can afford to be chaotic. Peep Show is hard to assimilate in one sitting, not because it's so complex but because it's so intense: the riffs are a blast of raw energy, the drums pump adrenaline by the gallon, and the songs eschew traditional structure in favor of jumping all around the rock & roll dancefloor. The ability to create so much wonderful noise using such simple tools links Merry to the Stooges and the White Stripes, but "Japanese garage rock" is really a contradiction in itself, because there are actually many details and much creative planning here. Given time for assimilation, the record will reveal its full-fledged arrangements, down to Mellotron, restaurant jazz, and sublime guitar leads, and the rockabilly/punk chaos will prove to have logic and show potent if unexpected hooks. Peep Show would have benefited from more variety in its moods -- 50 minutes of high-speed rock swagger can be exhausting -- but it's still an exceptionally fine piece of mess.
© Alexey Eremenko /TiVo