Mass Of Fermenting Dregs started out as an all-woman alternative rock band from Kobe City, Japan back in 2002, and released two well-beloved and brash EPs and an LP before breaking up in 2012. As of 2015, they've reformed and released a couple more albums with vocalist Miyamoto Natsuko as the sole remaining original member, leading the band with the angelic sweep and plunge of her daredevil vocal delivery. I'm glad that the band is back, but it's hard to deny how compelling of a coup that the original ensemble was able to mount.
Of the releases from that original run, the fandom appears split between the first two EPs, with 2010's ゼロコンマ、色とりどりの世界 (Zero Comma, a Colorful World) getting little more than a friendly nod before being politely dismissed. And of these two EPs, 2008'sワールドイズユアーズ (World Is Yours) is easily my favorite. I can't claim that it is better than their self-titled EP, but it's the one that I at least enjoy more. Their first album has a lot of charm and a wonderful kind of alchemic energy to it, but World Is Yours is where I feel the band really came into their own.
You could consider Masu Dore, as the band is sometimes called, an indie band, and they definitely fit into the range of sounds and styles that this term encompasses in Japan. Although, I think alternative rock does a greater service to their overall quality and ambitions back in the early '00s. I had encountered World Is Yours briefly during my "indie rock" phase back in 2009, but it didn't really click for me then. Likely, because it was too busy, and frankly, imaginative for me at the time. In the years since, I've opened myself up to a lot of different varieties of music (many of which I didn't even realize existed a decade ago) and I've found more and more to like about World Is Yours during that time.
The frenetic affair begins with the "このスピードの先へ (After this Speed)" which starts with some sticky, post-hardcore riffs, that act like the ignition turning over for a tremolo charged take off into the clouds, with Natsuko's crisp and bubbly vocals driving some mid-air acrobatics that premium jet fuel couldn't come close to delivering the spark necessary to propel. "青い、濃い、橙色の日 (Blue, Deep and Orange Day)" takes a pensive, if a still dynamic approach, to spinal-tapping, high-gloss post-punk and burst like keg filled with florescent dyed gunpowder and despair. This is followed by the momentous charge and the swelling stampede of the "かくいうもの (Such Things)," the welling edema of which it eventually channeled by the sharp, stab of some lance-like guitar work, which contrasts beautifully with the stead build and warry tempestry of Natsuko's melodies. The highlight for many on the album is the off-kilter, driving, and surprisingly vampy uplift of "She is inside, He is outside." It's a song that I admire as well. However, the song that I keep coming back for, again and again, is the closing title track, whose sunny grooves crisscross with spastic and sardonic guitar chords, providing Natsuko's an obtuse set of brisk and crackling counter melodies to push against with the patient power of her voice.
World Is Yours may be more than a decade old at this point, but when an album still sounds this fresh, you'd hardly guess that it's aged a day since its initial release. Seriously, this one is worth returning to.
World Is Yours was released by Avacado Records... which no longer appears to exist anywhere on the internet, and Universal Music Group... which does not list the band on their website.
