"Japan" by Monday Nights
Review
It's been a while since the last Monday Nights release ("Seasonal Aisle" back just before Christmas of last year) but they've been honing their debut EP which will be named ‘Meet You After The Earthquake' and will be out later this year.
This will include previous single "Turrah" (from last July) and a series of other tracks, some, like "Japan" which comes out tomorrow, appearing as singles first.
Written by the core members Jacob & Ali (the latter of whom produced it too), they are joined on "Japan" by Ali's Trust Club colleague Matt Good on guitar and John Glanville on bass.
Yet another in their ever growing series of attractive sounding (and structurally sophisticated) songs about the sort of things which no-one else thinks to write about (like the smell of rain for instance), this one is again a deeper themed track than a surface skim listen could uncover for you. You're going to need repeated spins to get the most out of "Japan".
In fact there is immediately a strong connection between this track & the overall EP title as Jacob was reflecting on Japan's frequent peril from earthquakes and tsunamis, their need for consequent preparedness and then he compared that to our comparative fortune in that respect. However from that point he detected a relative national complacency which he feels is merely part of a regrettable strand in British society more generally.
So what of the song itself? Well given the profundity of the theme, going for a cod-Japanese musical template would have been a bit obvious & cheapening. It's an excellent rock song (though there seems to be a cameo by the Tokyo underground and a pachinko reference for local colour).
Understatement has always been a Monday Nights characteristic: their emphasis has always been on their music rather than image. However "Japan" is musically at least their most overtly forceful & rock based song: possibly bringing in a musician from another band with a different sound has helped to morph Monday Nights' own into something harder: more in line I suppose with evocation of natural disasters on colossal scales & for laying into (and waking up) our own semi-somnolent society. At any rate, this is a message delivered with eloquence & passion & I'd be surprised if those did not help it get across effectively.
