Cat vs. Frog review on Foxy D

Hello friends, well it's August already and it's nearly spring-time again here in Wellington, New Zealand.

This is just a quick update to exclaim excitedly about a review which appeared on Foxy Digitalis of Masami's Cat vs. Frog album.

I had heard some of Kawaguchi's work with LSD March before, but Cat vs. Frog was my first exposure to the New Rock Syndicate (it's a pretty new project from what I can tell). Being a big fan of psych rock revivalists like Comets on Fire and Acid Mother's Temple, I knew I was in for a treat when the guitar screeches and screams began on the Cat side of this lovely piece of white vinyl. The intensity and rawness works well for the group, sounding like a lost piece of garage-psych from the 60s with an extra punk push that turns everything on the record up a few more notches.

Kawaguchi leads the band in several different directions here, lifting this up from being just another burnt out psych-jam and turning it into a haunting sound track to invisible film-noir. The band feels like they're playing in some empty dive bar at the end of the world. Memorable, heavy riffs fit right in next to melodious song structures and wailing noisy solos. The vocals with their sweet crooning quality, really stick out as something exceptional, even without being able to understand the language. The opening track of the Frog side is the perfect combination of insane psyched-out guitar and sweet yearning vocals. It feels unlike anything I've heard - a strange combination of 60's pop, noise, and garage rock. It's unusual to experience something that is strangely familiar yet entirely new, but that's exactly how Cat vs. Frog feels. 9/10

-- by Charles Franklin

That's a bloody great review and I'm proud of Masami.

...

There's no word at this stage what PALP003 is going to be.....

Another great review of "Cat vs. Frog" (PALP002)

Another great review of New Rock Syndicate's Cat vs. Frog appeared (briefly) on Volcanic Tongue's website:

Killer new album from the group that rose from the ashes of Broomdusters and Miminokoto. Indeed, Kawaguchi seems to be regressing with every release and this is his most explicitly straight-up garage rock side this far, with extended guitar-blazing instrumentals that sound like the greatest Television bootleg of your life and soloing that combines Lou Reed-styled amplifier worship with the epic, squealing style of Michio Kurihara circa White Heaven's Levitation. The pace is more breakneck and punked on the first side, but the second has a feel that is closer to Miminokoto's great SIWA LP, with Kawaguchi indulging in that languorously drawn out vocal style that pretty much defined that amazing group. Either way, his might just be the best *guitar* record he has made and has the exact mix of punk rock stupe, classic frat-chord phrasing and extended-to-oblivion jam-logic to make a guy like Chris Stigliano cash in alla his ELO 8-tracks. Recommended.

A review of "Cat vs. Frog" (PALP002)

Mimaroglu Music Sales has published some nice words about our new Kawaguchi Masami New Rock Syndicate LP:

kawaguchi’s name should be familiar to you if you’ve been following the most recent rogue wave of “tokyo flashback” lineage groups - he’s a member not just of lsd march, but also miminokoto and broomdusters - but here, as a leader, despite a few detours into high-rise-lineage rock-trio blow-out-dom, kawaguchi reins the band in, staying closer to the kinds of extended two-chord vamps & echo-box vocalizations/episodic single-note soloing of takashi mizutani’s les rallizes denudes / hadaka no rallizes ...

really beautiful, soaring stuff ... if the ocean-swept private-universe psych of lsd march touches you in a private, aesthetic place, this will do the same. highly recommended !!!

Kudos for "Split Fleet Dodge" (PALP001)

I been collecting some property-prop-props for the Stumps rekkid, including big ones from FUNcrazy ol' Thurston Moore and Byron Coley:

"Cool New Zealand trio antics from Antony Milton and pals. From winsome electro-dribble, through into full-blown avant-rock splooie, this LP includes some splashy guest organ work by Campbell Kneale and great wobble-vibes galore."

"Great lurching psych/noise rock." - Apex-online 'Boa Melody Bar' website

"Burning" - Mimaroglu music


But most excitingly the album was placed #18 on Thurston Moore and Byron Coley's Bull Tongue Top 80 of 2006 list, in Forced Exposure (in an article originally intended for Vol. 1, No. 26 [March 2007] of the defunct Arthur magazine).

Ok, that's enough outta me. Follow this link if yr real keano and you wanna read some other reviews of the LP; givuz some email lurve if ya wanna get hands on same. Or go see dem boys at Smoke.