"If you are the sun / And I am the moon / If you are the fish / And I am the water / Will you kindly show me the way?"
this is a weird one. i can't speak a lick of japanese, so a lot of the lyrics were lost on me until i looked at the bandcamp page, but that's not really what draws me to Eat Meat. i'm entranced by the instrumentation: this album's percussion in particular is a treat to listen to. the cymbals in Hallelujah are a real standout, especially as the song kicks up near the end, but the dissonance between the almost ethereal voice of lead singer shinji shibayama contrasts beautifully with the rough and honestly kind of unpolished musicianship of drummer and guitarists idiot, naoki zushi, and takahisa watanabe, and the use of other instruments like a two-stringed chinese violin all add up to a really unique sound. the album at times feels like one continuous project instead of a series of separate songs, but at the same time each song has its own identity and for lack of a better word "vibe" to it.
the album itself isn't particularly long, which i think actually helps more than it hinders. Eat Meat is rough and a bit hard to listen to at times (which is fair, as it was recorded by a bunch of friends in a small studio), but it makes up for this rough sound with some world-class mixing. i know i kind of sound like a broken record talking about how ethereal and otherworldly the album sounds at times, but there's a really alien sound to the overall album that makes it pretty special. it's not like any other pop album i've listened to and feels more like experimental music like yumbo's le petit trou, another japanese psychedelic group. something that Eat Meat does is work in quite a few english lyrics alongside its sound, and some songs like Green lovers are entirely in english. Green lovers in particular is a real standout; it's really not like anything else on the album, and reminds me in many ways of the more chilled out and slower songs in Cowboy Bebop's OST.
my main criticism about Eat Meat is that it's simply a bit much at times. it's definitely experimental and psychedelic, but as a result it occassionally feels like it's lacking direction. remember what i said about some parts of the album sounding like one continuous project? the songs don't naturally lead into each other like they do in some concept albums; they kind of become a mess, and while they're still identifiable it can be hard to realize when you've transitioned from one song into the next. it's very easy to get lost listening to it, and while that may work for other people it's not something that i tend to look for going into albums. overall, though, i really like Eat Meat, and i recommend it if you're interested in that kind of sound.
