Japanese Fighting Fish - Just Before We Go Mad

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 6 / 4 / 2011

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Review

Anyone that pays attention to anything that this insignificant little reviewer has written over the last few years will of course have noticed my admiration and love of the bands from the other city in Yorkshire – Leeds. And here’s another amazing band from there. Japanese Fighting Fish, however, stand out a little bit more even than the inspiring, unique, envelope-pushing bands Leeds that dominate the Leeds community. Citing bands such as Faith No More, Captain Beefheart and the Queens of the Stone Age among their influences,it pleases me greatly to say that those influences shine through and they are worthy of being compared to all of them. I do hear a definite slab of Mr Bungle in there particularly in the vocals of the singer Karlost, and the way the songs take the least logical direction at the drop of a hat. ‘Baltic Whistler’ sums this up nicely and does actually sound like a man losing the plot - it's brilliant. ‘Boots’ sounds like what you would get if Mike Patton and Tom Waits somehow (I don’t know how. I’m not a scientist) merged into one person and then made some gypsy party music. Everything about Japanese Fighting Fish is fantastic. Some bands just have it all, an incredible frontman, excellent lead guitar – that doesn’t twiddle too much, but still excites at every given opportunity - and of course all this is nothing without a stunning rhythm section to hold it all together. Japanese Fighting Fish have all this and much, much more. You could pick almost any of those elements out as the stand out part – stunning riffs, ass-shaking afro-rhythms or Karlost's vocals. But they blend all of them together. Look no further than the hypnotic ‘Blood and Sand’ for a fine example of this. Amazing. Go find them!

Track Listing:-

1 Johnny Sideways
2 Jesta
3 Dirty Wilson
4 Boots
5 Sick Of Waiting
6 Blood And Sand
7 Baltic Whistler
8 Blue Eyes
9 Dry One
10 Sa La Lar

Band Links:-

http://www.japanesefightingfish.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/Japanesefight
https://twitter.com/JFFUK
http://www.songkick.com/artists/239789