SUPER Æ

I had gotten enough familiarity with OOIOO to the point where it was time for that dreaded moment in meeting the father, Boredoms. Actually, I had been looking forward to hearing this group as OOIOO overwhelmed me with its eclectic take on indie rock, and I figured that Boredoms is sculpted in a similar fashion. That is essentially what I got from listening to SUPER AE, except that Boredoms is less sane.

The best tag that could be applied to Boredoms here is noise rock, aka the kind of music that Sonic Youth was pioneering in the 80's. But don't think of this band as any kind of Sonic Youth clone; there's more to them than noise rock. It appears they have equal amounts of influence from, of all bands, Black Sabbath, particularly the opening riff in ''Super You''. Also, the amount of Krautrock influence is apparent on the song ''Super Going'' as the beat is essentially that Motorik kind that NEU! is best known for.

The best thing about SUPER AE is that the music sounds like it writes itself. You can feel that each of the super songs (it's a running gag throughout the album) is based out of group jamming, but these jams aren't ones that come and go out of nowhere. There's buildup and suspense in ''Super Shine'' that feels slightly conducted, and the separate ideas in ''Super Are You'' have clever segues between them to the point where the psychedelic jam at the end was worth getting to. Each of the twelve minute numbers are orchestrated beautifully to the point where they all have addicting rhythms, but there are moments where the band can take a pause to let the listener catch their breath for a few seconds. And over the top of all the structured jams is one Yamantaka Eye, the mastermind of the outfit and lunatic vocalist that sounds like Damo Suzuki after a caffeine binge.

This is a fantastic indie/noise/neo-Krautrock jam-filled album that knows how to catch the listener's attention. I throw Krautrock in the tagging because I feel Eye and company understand a little bit about that movement to influence them, yet added more modern influences (e.g. Sonic Youth) to freshen the sound up a bit. SUPER AE is just super fun.