6

Rest in piss, folks!

Well good golly Miss Molly! Holy macaroni! I don't know whether to giggle like a school girl with a Popsicle, or call my mum in fear! Each and every person in the world should have to listen to this to appreciate what music is all about!

Scary Japanese looney tunes Bathtub Shitter are very unique in the fact that aside from the music which is a cross between Thrash/Death Metal and Grindcore - which is pretty damn good - they appear to have a vocalist by the name of Masato Henmarer Morimoto who is quite frankly schizophrenic in his singing. One minute we have a growling underbelly of Satan, and the next minute we have what can only be described as Mickey Mouse screaming in pain!

The first track is an intro and has keyboards that sound like a menu sequence of an 80's Commadore 64 game, then chugging and grinding guitars take us into 'Skate Of Bulgaria', where we are first introduced to Mickey Mouse. Now if you read the lyrics, it would appear that the band have maybe written them in Japanese and then translated them to English before recording them in English, as they are truly bizarre, as the first lines will tell you, 'Taught very white is innocent truth, when I was kids// appear in travelling with this board, I can't move in the snow..." Next song 'Umber' has some great musical parts, with dome great funky basslines and guitars half way through and the lyrics of "A girl lived somewhere, not cute but her hip was bigger// it gave her a bowel movement, she has smooth skin more than anyone..." and "...her fanny was fantastic, it gave her happiness..." truly fantastic!

What is amazing is not only how very difficult it is to follow the written lyrics in the inlay cover with vocals that go from high pitched death squeals to low deep growls, but also just how many references Bathtub Shitter can make to bowel movements!! 'Hello Alone' starts off with frantic drums before the growling voice poses the question: "Why are you smelling after my ass?" then states that, "My trail is a lot of tiny shit that I made...". As stated earlier, the songs have a pretty good structure and maybe if they took themselves a little more seriously - and perhaps clubbed their vocalist to death like a baby seal - then they would be a lot better. Next song 'Re-shit' is nothing special, however when the beginning to 'The End Of The Rainbow' starts like we have walked into a singing class at school, for a second I get a little excited, but then we have more grinding guitars and lashings of growling which tell the tale of colours, and yes, how brown is the best colour...

'Rest in Piss' is a comical toilet twist of rest in peace...oh, you got it already, but this is actually a pretty good song at a slower tempo and lyrics that are great like, "...toilet collapsed without notice// big wave swept all, there was underwater// brown tsunami caused bad shitting tale// like a shit, rest in piss...", don't hold your breath for a Grammy. I can't keep a straight face when I hear the AC/DC like version of DRI's 'Time Out', with vocals that sound like a hyperactive Brian Johnston on helium and could sound really good if the vocals weren't too octaves lower than that which only dogs can hear!

There is a gentle acoustic instrumental called 'Shit Drop' and the bizarre song 'PS From BS' which is the band singing their names and what instrument they play...funny, I never noticed anyone called Mickey Mouse...We even get a bonus track which just means I have to listen to more of this, and this appears to be played backwards, but takes me over a minute realise... Quite frankly I think I may need to exorcise some demons from my house after listening to this album with the blood curdling screams and squeals.

If Blink 182 were Japanese inmates in a psychiatric ward, and wanted to mix their toilet humour with Death Metal back beats, then you could well get Bathtub Shitter as the result. So is this album entertaining? Sure. Would I want to, or recommend that anyone alive or dead buy it? Shit, I'd rather lay cable and take my chances with a brown Tsunami drowning me...