Holy crap! This six-piece male/female group may hail from S?o Paulo, Brazil, but if I didn't know any better I'd swear they were from Japan! Because everything about this disc is whacked out and insane and just has Japan written all over it! Hell, it even sounds like they're singing in Japanese to some degree! These guys and girls storm through 21 tracks of raw and noisy as fuck punk rock (emphasis on the "noisy" and the "rock") in about 20 minutes, coming off as some sort of strange hybrid of insane hardcore/punk and garage rock with wild distorted shrieking female vocal screams and tons of discordant guitar parts going ballistic all over the place. Some of the songs could barely be considered songs, as they're either total noise or just humorous vocals with no music. But then they'll drop a total rager like "Sociedade" with more aggression and awesome fast vocal patterns. If they'd hone in on that aspect of their sound they'd fucking shred. The recording is definitely rough, but in an intentional way. The drums sound pretty normal, but everything else is pretty thin and has a rough edge to it. I'm not bothered by it because I think it adds to the overall feel of what's going on here, and the mix is pretty even (more bass might be nice). The layout is quite simple, using only black and white with a few nice photographs (including one live shot of the band) and all of the lyrics in Portuguese. I have no idea what the content could possibly be about in this case. Some of the song titles translate to things like "Society", "Hypocrisy", and "Racism" - suggesting a certain political slant. But then there are others like "Pillow", "Walkman", and "Right to Dream". So who knows? I'm guessing that the lyrics tend to be relatively intelligent and deal with the more issue-oriented side of things, but then again, some of the songs are obviously jokes ("Sodomy", for example), and this is a really crazy CD, so who knows!? In the end this is a nice disc, and an amusing one at that. But for me it is a bit too abrasive to truly appreciate. If they focused their energy a bit and wrote more songs along the lines of the structured intensity of "Sociedade" or the somewhat melodic "Ut?picos" they'd be an awesome band. I like this, but they're not hitting the nail on the head just yet.
[L?j?]
Running time - 20:31, Tracks: 21
[Notable tracks: Travesseiro, Sociedade, Ut?picos, Direito de Sonhar]
L?j? Records - http://www.laja.com.br
