[Albums] Fully Operational X Japan - eponymous EP CD

Fully Operational X Japan - Self-titled EP CD
2005 | self-released

FOX Japan is a band mostly from West Virginia with some members scattered about the states, getting together to record and do short tours. It's a rocking indie pop band that seems to have been kicking in some incarnation or other for the last ten years, but what appears on this EP from 2005, presumably their first release, is some really well-developed music with a melancholy, biting humor.

I dig the music quite a bit, and I'd say it bears quite a bit of resemblance to Pavement. Also, I'm guessing that like Pavement, live cuts of these tunes would probably come off with more appropriate vitriol given the subject matter. The lyrics are fascinating. "Emasculate Me," which finds the narrator questioning his role protesting anything in modern life struggling to find an appropriate position to take:

My great grandad was a farmer
So my granddad could be a teacher
My granddad was a teacher
So my dad could be a lawyer
My dad became a laywer
So that I could be an artist
Oh, capital
America got rich upon the backs of slaves and natives
Now it's staying that way
Because of bombs and cheap labor
I'll happily partake and complain about it later

Not a popular stance to take in the world of indie rock! But we've definitely got a live one here. Each tune, like Emasculate Me, comes off with a rather chill vibe, very clean recording sound (especially for what sounds like home recording), but has a latent sarcasm and cynicism that is most pleasing to me. I really want to see these guys rock out and get into it. The lyrics are all pretty intimate, dealing with loan sharks and over indulging in modern convenience and living needlessly complex lives, and taking on the corporate mono-culture and evangelical Christians ("Jesus Would Be Ashamed of You People" is not to be missed, friends).

Not coincidentally, FOX Japan is coming to the Garden State where I doth reside. The dudes will be playing a place called Cafe Arabica in Morristown, NJ, where I almost never venture, and I've not heard of the venue. It's a hookah bar, and I love hookah bars. The place seems to be booking a lot of Singer/Songwriter acts. FOX Japan is playing at Cafe Arabica on Dec 28th 2006, at 9pm.

You can download two of their tunes, order their EP, connect to their MySpace page, and get general info about the band and their tour on their website. Here's Emasculate Me. Additionally, they've made a new track, "What Follows", presumably from their upcoming EP, available on their website. Quite different from the more traditional indie rockin on their first EP, it's somewhere between Belle & Sebastian and Frank Zappa, and I like it a lot, especially when Charlie Wilmoth starts screaming "ARE YOU GONNA BEHAVE!" over and over again over a wall of ripping distortion. These guys are a blast.