Headbanger's Karaoke Club Dangerous Fire

You can tell from the band photos, featuring girls who aren’t in the band done up to look vaguely like anime characters, that Hayaino Daisuki is a rather self-conscious bit of musical identity construction. At the heart of this project, there are established grindcore musicians emulating a uniquely Japanese style of melodic thrash (a style so vainglorious and impassioned that it would be total cheese if it didn’t project such a crazedly charismatic aura of fanatical violence). Hayaino Daisuki’s presentation is ironic, but very sincere in its enthusiasm for the over-the-top nature of its chosen subgenre. It can be difficult to look past the band photos, the fictionalized identities, and the lavish packaging (a glossy cardboard foldout, slipcase, and eight page booklet of fanboyish J-metal info, disproportionate to the rather puny quantity of music on the EP). But beyond the gloss, one finds a pretty cool sound that’s simultaneously ultra-intense and kind of lazy.

The sonic essentials: sloppy-but-pummeling double bass drums doing the “snare first” pattern from the beginning of Slayer’s “Angel of Death”, viciously speedpicked guitars playing power metal-esque harmonies with an airy midrange tone, and John Chang of Discordance Axis concentrating his vocal talents into high-pitched screams with emotively rhythmic phrasing. His voice is especially evocative of the “fire” referenced in the album title and printed all over the CD packaging. If you’ve heard Terror Squad, it’s similar to their vocalist SonicRiot’s furious style. Chang’s words are an unexpected highlight of the EP, given the band’s jokey inclination. The lyrics seem to be poetic descriptions of apocalyptic anime scenarios, very emotional, very surreal in their depth of detail, yet so violently fulfilling to my manly essence I can almost taste the MANOWAR.

The four songs on this EP are pretty interchangeable. The Slayer drums lock into an endless stampede, while the guitars alternate passages of nearly atonal simplistic thrashing rage with tear-jerking, fist-pumping tremolo melodies that sound a LOT like Running Wild. I am a huge fan of this particular formula, of John Chang’s delivery, of the nearly out-of-control violence with which the band balances their melodic tendencies. But they could’ve written better, more distinctive songs, and they could’ve come up with a better-produced product, from both a sound-engineering and performance perspective.

The question of songwriting is tricky since this band exists in a strange space between abstract modern grind and a more traditional form of metal. Would a more conventional hook-oriented style of arrangement really suit HD’s sound? Only time and further musical development will tell. My biggest gripe is simply that the rhythm guitars should be tighter. They’re tight as it is, but c’mon: this is heroic swordfightin’ music! The heads-down speedpicking sounds great and the lead playing is exactly what you’d hope for, but there are quite a few choppy staccato thrash riffs here BEGGING for a more precise, forceful delivery. These riffs are only sketched with a light hand here, whereas they should have the solidity of the iron fist behind them.

This minor tightening of bolts alone would make Headbanger’s Karaoke Club Dangerous Fire a much more fully-actualized statement to my ears. I would like to believe Hayaino Daisuki’s threat, and will tenuously call myself a fan of what they are trying to achieve, but I hope they muster a more concentrated sense of life-and-death urgency on future efforts. Keep in mind, guys, it’s both funnier and more awesome in the long-run when bands of metal warriors don’t know or don't let on that their mock-heroism is ridiculous.