Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

I am not as up on the Japanese punk scene as I probably should be, so I come to Eleven Fire Crackers by Ellegarden at a disadvantage, meaning that I have to actually listen to the disc to form an opinion. What a concept! Actually, Ellegarden has been around for a while, releasing several (at least five) long-play projects, a bunch of singles and several DVDs. The covers of their CDs make me vaguely uncomfortable, which is probably the idea, but Eleven Fire Crackers is cute, with the marauders from Space Invaders all over the place. The music? Postpunk, think Green Day without the obnoxiousness, or Helmet taken down a notch or two. The guys sing the majority of Eleven Fire Crackers in English, maybe phonetically, but hey, they get A for effort, and sound as if they were raised in Southern California, even when they occasionally switch back to Japanese.

One thing: Eleven Fire Crackers is NEVER boring. The tracks just fly by, with Ellegarden rocking with authority here, loud and proud but considerate of the listener. Winter would be the choice for the initial single here, but just about anything on here, including Gunpowder Valentine (and excluding Salamander) could be a single.