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Japanese Psychobilly. That’s something new for me, although from what I’ve heard there are quite a few bands coming from there, and Psychobilly is quite popular over there. So it’s about time I heard some Psycho from the land of the rising sun and weird animated porn. So, enter Mad Mongols and the international release of their originally Japan-only release Frenzied Black Demon.

To best describe Mad Mongol’s style of Psychobilly, I’d say imagine Psychobilly of the harder, more aggressive and heavy kind put through a strange time warp of some sort, distorting the sound and music of the band to something quite… well, distorted. Deranged and odd. Japanese. Mainly it’s pretty fast and furious, although not aggressive in the same vein as Banane Metalik, and the production is a lot more appealing to my ears: where Banane Metalik’s Sex, Blood And Gore’n’Roll has a rather Heavy Metal-styled production with especially the slap bass often being lost under the guitars, Mad Mongols have a far less aggressive, dominant and heavy guitar sound and production in general, in the sense that the slap bass is clearly heard and the guitars sound less prominent.. Spacey is the word I’m thinking of for some reason. Not a bad thing at all, since the sound remains clear and balanced, and the slap bass is audible at all times. I like slap bass.

Musically, Frenzied Black Demon isn’t earth-shatteringly stunning, but it’s very enjoyable and fun. There are really no highlights or low points here (but there are a fair share of odd and unexpected breaks and strange sections), and therefore the CD might become a bit samey in the long run, especially as the vocals and the lyrics in the booklet are all completely in Japanese, so you can’t really concentrate on them either. This makes the album a bit intangible as well, but not boring by any means. Frenzied Black Demon isn’t a revolutionary experience, but it sure as Hell is a fun and very enjoyable album. It’s one of those albums that maybe won’t find their way into your CD listener on a daily basis, but that will still sound good every time you decide to listen to it.