OSAKA PUNCH – Death Monster Super Squad (EP Review)

OSAKA PUNCH – Death Monster Super Squad EP
OUT : September 16th, 2016
OSAKA PUNCH Line up:
Jack Venables | vocals
Brent Page | bass
Dane Pulvirenti | drums
Chrispy Lait| guitars
OSAKA PUNCH online:
Brisbane's Osaka Punch release their new EP, Death Monster Super Squad this Friday! It is everything you hoped the Brisbane quartet would deliver as a follow up to the promising Voodoo Love Machine and more……much, much more. The genre bending band have undoubtedly upped the ante on this seven track world of groovy craziness. Having created seven characters or story lines within each track for this EP you need to be following these guys on their Facebook page to get the whole gist of what is happening in the song - or just be like me and enjoy the groove.

Music wise, the band tinker from a jazzed up groove sound, to rock melody to a few sporadic breakdowns, and this is not just across the album but from track to track. Melody crashes into crazy bridges and off shoots to keyboard and heavier hits, but again, it works; crazy as it sounds. In fact, throughout DMSS, the groove is front and centre.
Tracks like ‘Served with Mustard’ and their latest single, ‘Make The Call’ are stand outs, both intertwining a unique gift of melody with subtle use of heaviness here and there. There's even a grand piano thrown in for good measure. But the stand outs aren’t surrounded by fillers. ‘Stonk’ as it sounds is a stampeding beast planted around some interesting synthesised keyboards, a killer Chrispy Lait riff and some bludgeoning beats from Dane Pulvirenti. Opener ‘Eat You Up’ introduces the EP to trumpet that quickly encompasses the beat and melody before some more Chrispy riffage.
Vocalist, Jack Venables commands this EP. His stamp of creative vocals and subtlety set the scene throughout whether it be the more rock vocal required for opener, ‘Eat You Up’ or the laid back jazz cruise of ‘Mankiller’. And despite some looney magic mushroom induced lyrics throughout, you kind of got the feeling it was headed that asylum direction prior to first listen.
DMSS is a super EP, and one that will hopefully inspire the band to push on and attempt to crack this code of mundane music with a little something just a tad off centre. Twelve Foot Ninja aren’t just the only band raising the bar of indefinable music in Australia, Osaka Punch has arrived.
9 Magic Mushrooms out of 10
Death Monster Super Squad track listing:
Eat You Up
Make The Call
Served with Mustard
Stonk
Mankiller
In or Out
Spider and The Fly
Check out the two Osaka Punch music videos from DMSS below....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB6SOMYw-TM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3K9E3avjWQ
