Half Japanese shines like a beacon to those looking beyond rock’s accepted molds. Emerging around 1975 as a brotherly duo, the gradually expanding and shifting outfit has amassed one of modern music’s more unusual yet dependably comforting discographies. After a long hiatus, leader and sole constant member Jad Fair snapped the group back to action in 2014 and they’ve been busy ever since; Hear the Lions Roar is their latest and it’s out January 13 on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Fire Records.
Initially the project of siblings Jad and David Fair, across four decades Half Japanese has moved from the subterranean oddball fringe into a prime spot in the underground’s Hall of Fame. Prolific through a series of distinct eras, over the last few years Fire Records has done a bang-up job of corralling those periods into a series of box sets. They started with an expanded 4LP/ 3CD edition of Half Gentlemen Not Beasts, initially issued in 1980 as perhaps recorded music’s first triple album debut.
Raw, emotionally nude and gloriously untethered to notions of traditional musicianship, the Brothers Fair stripped-down the proto-punk mojo of the Velvets and especially the uninhibited awkwardness of Jonathan Richman to its rudiments, injected a hearty strain of bedroom/ basement experimentalism, and on Half Gentlemen’s live material augmented the lineup with another set of brothers, namely John and Rick Dreyfuss. The exploration of a full-band conception blossomed on Loud, Our Solar System, and Sing No Evil, the three LPs that comprise Volume 1: 1981-1985.
Early Half Japanese proved gripping to converts but perplexing to those not swayed by the Fair’s outsider charms, but by Sing No Evil they were making sounds generally recognizable as rock. This would’ve normally either resulted in a schism between old fans and new audience or spelled disaster all around, but with David exiting the picture Jad broadened his base of support, honed his songwriting and came up with two classics of the ’80s underground in Music to Strip By and The Band That Would Be King, plus one flat-out masterpiece in Charmed Life, the three shaping Volume 2: 1987-1989.
It’s with Volume 3: 1990-1995 that many hardliners demark the end of Half Jap’s strongest stretch, but it’s far from that simple. We Are They Who Ache with Amorous Love rounds up a bunch of highly worthwhile early stuff, the Maureen Tucker-produced Fire in the Sky includes a handful of gems (and serves as a fine companion to Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King), and Hot stands as the best of their post-’89 full-lengths.
Volume 4: 1997-2001, which rounds up Bone Head, Heaven Sent, and final pre-hiatus effort Hello, at times presents Half Japanese as an indie-era garage rock unit with a quirkier than usual frontman, but that reality mingles quite well with Jad Fair’s artistic persona as he approaches later age. 2014’s Overjoyed, last year’s follow-up Perfect, and now Hear the Lions Roar pick up the tread with nary a hitch.
This is partly through a familiar cast, as Hear the Lions Roar employs the same personnel as Hot; that’s John Sluggett (guitar, keys, timbales), Gilles-Vincent Rieder (drums, percussion, keys), Jason Willett (bass, keys), and Mick Hobbs (guitar, glockenspiel), so anyone keen on Half Jap’s ‘90s output who’ve hesitated to jump into the reactivated fray should rest easy.
“Wherever We Are Led” bursts out of the gate with vaguely Velvety amp moan (think “I Heard Her Call My Name”) and Jad’s by now trademark adenoidal speak-sing vocal style, while “Attack of the Giant Leeches” reaches back to the early ’80s as it refreshes one of Half Jap’s defining tropes in the “monster song.” Old enough to have been legitimately impacted by TV reruns of the creature features of yore (this particular Bernard L. Kowalski-directed example from ’59), Fair continues to tackle the subject not with irony but sincerity, which is why the maneuver has yet to run out of gas.
Akin to an old-school B-movie auteur, Fair doesn’t invest in grandness of execution or knockout themes, preferring to pile up modestly sized expressions, 13 in total here, with the whole acquiring substantiality without becoming overly weighty; “Here We Are” could be possibly be diminished as Half Jap by the numbers, but that would overlook the added guitar strum that arrives halfway through, a small touch with a big payoff.
But after Fair and company avoided the ’90s indie-major label minefield, “Half Jap by the numbers” became a major facet of the group’s overall appeal, bringing Fair’s oeuvre (together with his graphic art) nearer to hobby than career. Also refreshing is that as an entity once categorized as rock scene interlopers, they are amongst the current minority who capably rock in an unqualified sense, though with enough savvy to widen the instrumental landscape in the monster song “It Never Stops.”
Consistently surrounded by high quality bands, Jad occasionally steps back and lets the music take the reins, but after the ’60s-flavored stomper “Of Course It Is,” he delivers one of the disc’s wordiest cuts in “On the Right Track.” Part of the other recurring Half Jap lyrical motif, that being “love songs,” his words are surround by buoyant keyboard strains and jazz snare, but with “The Preventers” he tweaks the monster theme a bit, adopting a persona reminiscent of a character from a reactionary anti-counterculture flick and decrying an onslaught of “lowlife zombie hippies.”
It contrasts sharply with the energetic title-track and the broader pop-rock dimensions of “Do It Now,” while the keyboard-tinged “On Top” locates the zone betwixt neo-frat-rock and guitar-based new wave. The track segues nicely into the catchy, baritone sax-laden (courtesy of Lydia Fischer, who guests alongside cellist Sophie Bernadou) and lyrically rousing “It’s Our Time.”
From there the LP stretches out for the homestretch, and with closer “Super Power,” does so maybe a little too much. However, on the penultimate track “This is What I Know” they locate a lushness that’s rare in the Half Japanese catalog and results in a late highlight. The dangers of the aforementioned hobbyist angle can be a decline in urgency and weakened standards, but Hear the Lions Roar, if not as strong as Fair’s best ’90s work, is certainly defying the odds, and as such is a worthwhile proposition.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
