Desperado

All High Rise albums tend to pass by in a furious blur – that’s kinda what they do. Desperado is classic High Rise from its first second, and if the volume and accelerated drive of the fifty-four second “Git” doesn’t make you leap out of your sofa, you’re made of sturdy stuff indeed. Guitarist Munehiro Narita has a particular knack for rock riffs that are near-cartoonish in their primitivism, but that somehow pin down everything that’s thrilling about the genre in three chords and the nastiest fuzztone on the planet; what’s more surprising on Desperado is how quickly he jettisons those riffs – for example, the title track is a free-wheeling blast, High Rise doing rock improvisation at 200 miles per hour; the following “Right On” dials down the speed, but not the intensity, for some of Narita’s most kinetic note-spray guitar soloing. Throughout, vocalist/bass player Asahito Nanjo and drummer Shoji Hano keep up with Narita’s hyperactivity with commendable stamina. It’s one of High Rise’s best – but really, you can say that about all their albums.