What the world doesn't need, the music press will tell you, is more bands from Glasgow who want to sound American. Well, they're wrong. We need lot more bands from Glasgow who want to sound American. Because this 'American' sound is basically just distortion and feedback, the bedrock of guitar music wherever you're from.

Urusei Yatsura like distortion and feedback.

Though the band is sadly no more, Yatsura were once a smack in the face of anyone who things British music has to sound like Coldplay. Enough with the self-pity and the minor chords, already. Urusei Yatsura aren't big on minor chords. Gripping obscure leopardskin guitars and wearing T-shirts with 'Atari' on them, Yatsura are the razor-edge of indie.
 

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Slain by Urusei Yatsura (1998, Che)
It's not really possible be more obvious than Urusei Yatsura. They're to indie music what the Dead Kennedy's were to punk music. Listening to this this record, you wonder why everyone doesn't do the same thing, because the ideas seem to obvious. Loud, lots of power chords, discordant instrumental breaks, bizarre lyrics. Taking the best bits of, mostly, Sonic Youth and Pavement, Urusei Yatsura have made a record which is distinctly their own. True, other people have done the same thing, but while I listen to this record I wonder how anyone could not want to sound like Urusei Yatsura.

'Glo Starz' begins one of the record's main themes, fame. UY are somewhere between hating fame, and being fascinated with it. While 'Superfi' is a biting back at the music industry, with it's chorus "I've got my fanzine // so fuck the music scene", 'Hello Tiger' is the nearly opposite, about the attraction of fame, but also how hollow celebrity really is. Throughout, this record seems like an angry retaliation against the music scene, but at the same time it's also defiantly not anti-pop, because this is one of those record you almost don't have to listen to, because the songs quickly burn themselves onto your brain.

Tracks like 'Slain By Elf' and 'Skull in Action' are obviously big punk noise angry songs, but underneath all the guitar static 'Fake Fur' is a quite a soppy love song, albeit with a hard edge. 'Amber' is more obviously 'sad', and while it isn't exactly in keeping with the rest of the record, it manages to hold its own, even tagged slightly apologetically, as it is, at the end of the record.

What makes this record different from other noise-pop wannabes is that Urusei Yatsura can do noise and pop at the same time, and neither one ever usurps the other. As a result of this, UY get away with burst of feedback and noise which only add to the melody and shit, rather than completely destroying them.

Why would anyone want to sound different from Urusei Yatsura? I'm dunno. Maybe it's an industry thing.

#LINKS#
Urusei Yatsura Fan Page
Guitar tabs, image gallery and the usual stuff.
 

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