Hibushibire

In the face of something too awful to deal with or ignore, sometimes the only response is to lose yourself, or, as Hibushibire would have it, 'Turn on, Tune In, Freak Out!', their recently released new album.

It is an album that threatens to swamp you like a tidal wave of sound, with barely any let up in the aural assault, but if you accept your insignificance in the face of a wall of guitar squall, then there is much to enjoy.

'Blow! Blow! Blow!', which could be about a couple of things, starts off with a riff that bounces off the sidewalls like a car on ice, driven by someone with a death wish, which is interrupted, not by a terminal collision, but by a mid-section of acid psych guitar, which allows you to catch your breath before a return to the death race.

In my pantheon of Japanese rock bands, Hibushibire occupy some kind of intersection between Acid Mothers Temple and, maybe, Kikagaku Moyo, though definitely closer Mokoto Kawabata's end of the spectrum, which is not altogether surprising given that he mixed the album 😉