When Flipside entered into the multi-year publishing hiatus that they’re currently wallowing in, I was left with a bunch of releases from the Flipside, no-one-wants-to-review-this pile. I didn’t even listen to most of the stuff. I just stuck it in a shoe box to await a less discriminating time in my life. A few months ago, I finally went through the box to see if I was missing out on any gems, and I found this seven-inch. The cover is really vague and arty, and it took me a while to figure out which bands were on it, but I figured out that Sweet JAP was one of the bands. I knew that name because, if I’m not mistaken, the singer of this band is the guy who did the intro to the newest D4 album. I’d heard good things about them, so I figured I should give this record a spin. I was blown away. It’s like finding a fifty dollar bill in the pocket of a jacket that you haven’t worn for years. Sweet JAP play tight and trashy rock’n’roll that’s reminiscent of the early Replacements in its catchy rawness and reminiscent of Teengenerate in its ability to make your stereo sound like it’s in the middle of a speaker-blowing orgasm. The Das Boot side is good, too. It’s also trashy rock’n’roll, but more in the vein of the New Bomb Turks at their best. As you can probably tell, though, it’s the Sweet JAP side that’s got me going nuts. So, yeah, this release is a couple of years old but what the hell? A gem is a gem. Check it out.
–sean (Nice & Neat)