A listening journal, written by a temperamental and emotionally unstable reviewer.

First listen:

I came home from teaching saxophone at about 6pm. I am extremely tired. However, I decide to give the latest reviewing assignment a shot. It was quite an awakening. Los Bananas make epic music. Really fucking epic, apocalyptic, and devastating - all those words that make you want to cream your panties in fear and adulation. However, in this age where epic is commonplace, and the end of the world is seemingly nigh, judging by the sounds emanating from bands such as Red Sparowes, epic needs to be executed with the finest of hands. Many of these riffs seem kind of miscellaneously epic; they’re not particularly outstanding. The opening song sounds a bit too much like that first track on the latest Pelican album. Certainly on its own it feels like an intense experience. After listening once through, I decide to drink a glass of water and listen to Australasia. Yeah, Los Bananas sounds pretty unpolished and underwhelming compared to this.

Second listen:

So I’ve got down at what this band wants to achieve. They’re one of these “I really want to blow you away, could you take your pants off please?” bands. So we’ll judge this according to the “blow away” scale. Half the time, the buildups are quite predictable, but the explosions of sound and distortion are pretty nuclear. Unfortunately the aftermath, strange electronically produced sonic squiggles, are grating on the ears and ultimately very annoying. I think I’d give this 5 out of 10 on the "blow away" scale.

Third listen:

Let’s see how this release ages on me. At the moment I am pretty pissed off, I’ve come back from Melbourne to find that I owe my friend 50 bucks that I can’t even remember. This Los Bananas material really does the firing up thing well. Track #6, the vast and wildly constructed closer to this release becomes the soundtrack to my frustrations. There are a lot of things that didn’t excite me before that excite me now. I am starting to like this release.

Fourth listen:

It’s a lazy holiday afternoon. Los Bananas blasting through the speakers sounds a bit too pointlessly loud. The first two tracks continue to sound predictable and derivative. The final song rocks pretty hard though, and the  post-explosions strange sounds seem to make more sense now. I’m not sure of what I’m feeling to this release.

Conclusion:

This album is definitely one for certain occasions. On an entirely objective musical level it isn’t the most original of releases at all, and doesn’t say much for itself, e.g. not one of the better releases of the year. However, at times the band do pull off a truly explosive sound that could rival their contemporaries. Some sections are predictable, but are made up for by those that are more convincing. Post-explosion sounds are a quirk, but bring forth some identity to the strangely named Los Bananas. This is the sound of a band that has a lot in common with many other bands, but could potentially move outside the boundaries of the style they contribute to crafting. Creating something new in this environment is difficult; Los Bananas is not there yet. They earn themselves 5 happy hamsters out of 10. The middle score. And there is promise of more to come. Hopefully they unravel this sound in future releases.

-Marcus Whale