July 5, 2011

Album Review: Shonen Knife - 'Free Time'

As youthful, enchanting and boisterous as ever before

7 / 10 Osaka, Japan’s beloved Shonen Knife have now been churning out mini pop-punk masterpieces for bang on 30 years – not that you’d be able to guess from the youthful pep of ‘Free Time’. As ever, the all-female pop-punk trio finds its inspiration in the seemingly mundane.

Whether celebrating gastronomy of the sugary sweet kind on ‘Rock’N’Roll Cake’, immortalising their school hangout on ‘An Old Stationary Shop’ (“It opens every day except Sunday!/You can buy anything you need at school”)
or squaring up to villainous sea creatures on ‘Monster Jellyfish’, the heroic ladies sound just as fresh and enchantingly boisterous as they ever have.

Tom Edwards

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