108 - Melt-Banana - Cellscape (2003)
A Japanese sonic assault on the senses, but with well written songs. The album starts off with a sound effects piece as a warmup. Then the second song "Shield for your eyes, a beast in the well on your hands" (gotta love the song titles) kicks off what the album is really about with fast brilliant guitar work using tons of effect pedals (Agata is the best relatively unknown guitarist and definitely the best at effects). About halfway through the song Yasuko starts her barking singing style in English though you can't make out most of the words. Rika the bassist is good and the drum machine programming is so good there was a debate for a long time if it was a machine or a person.
The next 6 songs are each very unique though follow the description I mentioned above. "If it is the deep sea, I can see you there" the band slows down and has a very normal rock song with normal singing. Finally, the outro is a 10 minute ambient piece that chills you out.
I am recommending this album because the combination of high energy, melody, and unique sound (all the guitar effects in particular) is so rare and has never been executed better IMHO.
PS I'm too new here to be allow to post the covert art.
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