This is one of the album reviews I wrote for The Independent, the weekly publication once presided over by the most indefatigable human being I know. Clearly, my later instinct when writing for Spectrum Culture to claim music that was outside my general comfort zone was in effect even back then. I’d like to say that all the cross-references that can be found in this short piece were indicative of the strong influence Mojo magazine had on my writing at the time, but I still do that.

Polysics offer up a “Special Thanks to Devo” in the liner notes to their second album, Neu. They’re not kidding around. They’ve got the synth rhythms. They’ve got the fragmented, insistent lyrics. Hell, they’ve even got the jumpsuits. The de-evolution continues. This Tokyo trio plays around with a particularly jubilant brand of noise rock. The songs have a sci-fi zap-pop undercurrent, but the sound is punctured by abrasive guitar heroics impressive enough to earn slinger Hiroyuki Hayashi a seat at the big kids’ table at Thurston Moore’s house. No slice of catchy, danceable pop is immune. Something jagged and dissonant could be coming at you at any second. The sound is bright, full, and mechanical. It’s almost as if Polysics has written a soundtrack album for the pink robots that Yoshimi battled on the last Flaming Lips album. According to the Lips, those were “evil machines.” Polysics would’ve called them misunderstood heroes. (4 stars, out of 5)