Far France – Ahyaranke

I saw the Constantines last night, so you know I’m in the mood for some solid rock music. Enter Far France, this band plays noisy rock and, like the Constantines, although they don’t do anything groundbreaking, they bring all their influences together expertly.

Far France draw upon bands like Number Girl and the Bloodthirsty Butchers, mixing overdriven bass, feedbacking guitars, and vocalist Shinya Hanafusa’s desperate sounding singing/screaming.

First, a little background to explain where my tastes are coming from when it comes to this kind of music: Number Girl was the first Japanese band that I listened to. I’d heard them compared to the Pixies and that was enough to get me to listen. Both in terms of sound and in terms of their importance to the Japanese music scene, the Pixies comparison is apt. Sonically, Number Girl is somewhere between the Pixies and Nirvana, that is to say, they make intense alt-punk. Until I heard Number Girl, I thought of Japanese music as idol-pop and was completely uninterested in it – so they’ve been a big influence on my tastes.

In short, dissonant, noisy punk rock is the foundation of my interest in Japanese music – which means, I friggin’ love Far France. Their sound is based primarily on dissonant, feedbacking guitars, simple punk bass lines and singer Shinya Hanafusa’s desperate singing/screaming.

Their second album, Ahyaranke, came out in Japan last February. It’s a very live, raw sounding album, no autotune or beat-editing here. The energy rarely drops below ‘extremely energetic’ and when the band does slow down there’s still a lot of tension driving their rhythms. Songs are generally concise and to the point, no extended solos or noodling, just great songwriting mixed with some great, noisy guitars.

Second single, ‘Mahiru Nite’ opens with a brief atmospheric intro before going into a post punk riff similar to Vola and the Oriental Machine. Much of this song is instrumental, but like the best instrumental songs, it rarely rests on one idea for too long.

Another highlight is album closer ‘Burebura’. A playful guitar line evokes the best of mid 90’s American alt-rock (Pavement, Built to Spill etc.). There’s a great classic rock guitar break in the middle of the song and Hanafusa’s vocals reach an amazing screech (no, not that screech) at the climax of the song.

The level of energy on this album is amazing and the songs are great. The whole thing clocks in at 31 minutes with 8 songs, which is just perfect. When it comes to this kind of music, the best albums are brief enough that by the end you just want to start over again. If you love noisy rock then you can’t do much better than Ahyaranke by Far France.

Videos:
Mahiru Nite: