- Little less than two years has passed since Japanese quartet CHAI dropped their debut. Now comes PUNK and sophomore slumps be damned, damned to heck! Boiling with ceaseless, blending, vivacious chirrups and flavours of technicolour joy, CHAI’s latest outing is one wholesome dose of kaleidoscopic jubilee that should be savoured, down to the last drop.
To appease those who may like things broken down a little more than that, all of these songs derive their essence from pop. The fact that CHAI've toured with Superorganism is indicative: both bands take pop songs and motifs and drag them far enough out of the commercial pop realm to avoid reductive dismissals.
Those pop origins pay off and will have you singing along by the time the second chorus rolls around. CHAI strut with earnt supreme confidence, with a palpable swagger, because perfect pop is hard to do.
Outside of a singular vowel change, upon first listen, it doesn’t sound like CHAI have pushed much beyond where we last heard them. Nor does the record introduce the timbres, structures, or aggression of its namesake. So why is it called PUNK? CHAI’s raison d'être has been to redefine what is deemed as cute. I reason it like this: “punk” refers to an attitude. It was best exemplified, recently, when Johnny Rotten delivered a tirade at the not good Ramone: “we believed that we can change our lives for the better,…through music.” CHAI are a four piece that believe just that: it galvanised them as a group.
For all the songs from one through to ten, everything's blasted with neon-pink, synths, stabbing bass-grooves, group-harmonies, and smiles. Chose Go! rockets out the proverbial gates with a compact drum and bass groove. It layers a swirl of phase over where the track would have normally progressed under the pop guise; revelling in psychedelics. A simple ploy like this prods at the pop box and this is where the improved production work comes into play. This prodding is revisited consistently with THIS IS CHAI shadowing, dare I say, the musical sanctuary reserved for the most holy of anonymous, mask touting acronyms. GREAT JOB follows suit although the rhythm section has been opened up to incite pure, unadulterated dancing. The irony of using that phrase for a song that has overt references to house cleaning isn’t lost on me. It just bolsters the notion that CHAI can distil positivity from anything. It isn’t all experimentation and diversion tactics with I’m Me dishing out a self-love single with enough bubblegum to satiate “Rowdy” Roddy Piper; it’s as pure as a single could be and leaves you with a diagnosable case of positivity. Feel The Beat and Wintime comfortably fill the synth-pop-adoring stadium that it is so clearly written for. These moments see CHAI streamlining their electric and engaging personalities into a refined, glistening product. I think you probably know this already, but PUNK is all fun killer without a skerrick of filler.
CHAI utilise the over-the-top pop neon to their unbridled benefit. The band name and indeed the album title, as well as a few songs have been smashed in all caps indicating a high amount of energy and artistic control too. Every ounce of the improved production has helped the songs have developed further. Held together by the mindset of positive change through music, CHAI may not be writing songs for a wider revolution, but truthfully, they don’t need to. PUNK is the kind of album that will spark a small revolution in you.
- Matt Lynch.