For those of you who haven’t yet encountered Bo Ningen, let me present to you the (highly pretentious) opening line from their website’s bio page as an introduction: ‘Enlightenment activists from far east psychedelic underground’. Yeah.
Japanese-born but Hackney-based, they’re not ‘60s psychedelic’; more like a sometimes funky, sometimes punky metal band filled with noise and harsh vocals. In fact, the only quality that could qualify them for psychedelia is that they’re incredibly boring. Seemingly unable to decide upon exactly what type of music they want to play, on III they meander around the metal end of the musical spectrum, leaning towards prog, ultimately accomplishing little. They can’t sit still on any good idea they have, and most of the things they try out can be (and have been) done better. Pantera are funkier, Dream Theater are more interesting, and as far as inspired experimental metal goes, I really can’t recommend Thought Industry’s album Mods Carve the Pig too highly.
What you get on III is a lukewarm mixture of half-baked ideas, that goes on for way too long. If it was condensed to half the length, leaving less room for musical waffling, maybe it’d be a better listen. But it’s not, and I’m sure you’ve got better ways to spend an hour.
