Exploring themes of greed and its terrible consequences, Gamera vs. Barugon is an entertaining, if sometimes slow, Gamera outing. Perhaps the best of the original Showa run of Gamera films, Gamera vs. Barugon mixes interesting human drama with a menacing lizard monstrosity, and marks Gamera’s first colour appearance.
The scheming Onodera (Kōji Fujiyama), oblivious Keisuke (Kojiro Hongo), and chipper Kawajiri (Yuzo Hayakawa) are sent by a World War II veteran to an island in the South Pacific to retrieve a large opal hidden during the war. After venturing into the ‘valley of rainbows’ (called so and feared by the island residents) Onodera lets Kawajiri die and leaves Keisuke for dead. Onodera then takes the opal and returns to Japan. Keisuke wakes to find he’s been taken care of by Karen (Kyoko Enami), an island resident. En route to Japan, Onodera accidentally exposes the opal to infrared rays, exacerbating the growth of the organism within: Barugon. Karen and Keisuke return to Japan, armed with knowledge that could help stop the now-giant lizard.
The film’s depiction of greed is a little two-dimensional. Koji Fujiyama’s Onodera is very straightforward in his self-serving ways. However, what works is that the film leans into that presentation, and creates a genuinely unlikeable antagonist in the process. When Onodera accidentally blurts out that he killed Kawajira and Keisuke, he murders the veteran and their wife. The short brawl before Onodera kills the pair is devoid of humour, especially when he hits the veteran’s wife in a stark moment. Scenes like this may not round out the character, but they succeed in eliciting an emotional response to such wickedness.
What’s unique here is that one of the main protagonists is part of the depiction of greed. Unlike Toho’s Mothra (1961) or Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), wherein the main characters stand clearly opposed to the greed around them, Gamera vs. Barugon presents us with a lead (Keisuke) who shares culpability for the arrival of the monster, Barugon.
What Gamera vs. Barugon has therefore, is an interesting look at guilt and shame. These emotions define Keisuke’s actions for the rest of the film. In turn, they make him a more interesting character, one who feels the weight of the destruction Barugon brings. Indeed, the whole film carries emotional material with a respectable maturity. A quiet moment in which Keisuke looks over a photo of the deceased Kawajiri’s wife and child is markedly upsetting. This character perspective makes Keisuke unique, his guilt stirring him to action, and to realise his redemption.
An air of cynicism and bleakness pervades much of the film, best illustrated in a scene in a shelter in Osaka as Barugon ravages the city above. Tranquil koto music on the radio juxtaposes the terrified faces of mothers grasping their children. A man’s casual gripe about “another atomic bomb” is stark. This is on top of a range of characters whose motives are grimly self-serving.
Gamera looks great in this film. With a permanent scowl, Gamera genuinely looks as if he hates Barugon, adding delicious excitement to the beasts’ encounters. Barugon’s design is simple in construction. He is, for all intents and purposes, a large lizard. But it’s the ingenious choices made with Barugon’s powers that truly make him a worthy foe for the titanic terrapin. From his back, Barugon can launch a rainbow death ray, obliterating all it touches. From his mouth, Barugon’s tongue extends to spray a jet of ice, freezing all before it. These powers and their use in the film come almost entirely without warning, raising the stakes in a surprising fashion.
The film maintains a slow pace throughout, and it’s a big detractor. The human drama and the monster sequences are engaging, but they become stifled after Barugon appears because the film indulges in military meetings about stopping the beast. While this means we’re eventually treated to some great sequences, such as Barugon destroying several missiles using his rainbow death ray, these preceding scenes are a bit tedious.
Whilst elements such as its pace can detract, Gamera vs. Barugon presents an entertaining story with interesting themes. Some of its characters may be thinly constructed in their motives and morality, but that also allows the film to really embellish just how cruel and villainous they are. The remainder of Gamera’s Showa outings would develop to entertain children first and foremost, and the grim tone of Barugon wouldn’t be seen again until the series’ reboot in the 1990s. That said, Gamera vs. Barugon deserves another look, the tonal black sheep of the Showa Gamera era.
Chance the Rapper, The Big Day: Chance the Rapper has dropped his long-awaited debut album, The Big Day, a follow-up to his independently-released mixtape Coloring Book in 2016. It was announced last week on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, with the Chicago rapper explaining: “I haven’t sold my projects before. A lot of my projects were free. This is my debut album, so there’s a pre-order and I told Jimmy to pre-order my album. And he was like, ‘If you say the release date on my show.”
Violent Femmes, Hotel Last Resort: Following the band’s not-so-well-received comeback in 2016 with We Can Do Anything, which was their first studio album in 16 years, legendary acoustic-punk outfit Violent Femmes return once again with a new record titled Hotel Last Resort. The album includes the previously released title track featuring Television guitarist Tom Verlaine, covers of Greek band Pyx Lax’s ‘I’m Not Gonna Cry’ and Irving Berlin’s ‘God Bless America’, as well as a guest appearance from pro skateboarder Stefan Janoski. Bassist Brian Ritchie described the album as “probably the best one we’ve made since Hallowed Ground, which is a long time. It’s just a very focused album, the songs all hold together. It’s a classic album, in the sense that people should actually sit down and listen to the whole thing.”
Swain, Negative Space: Alternative rock band Swain follow up their acclaimed 2016 album The Long Dark Blue with Negative Space, out now via End Hits Records. The band (f.k.a. This Routine Is Hell) previously released the singles ‘Negative Space’ and ‘But Then What’. They explain via their Facebook page: “Recording this album has been a large step into a strange new direction for us. To be honest it’s pretty weird having recorded such a different album and then having to wait 6 months while hoping people are interested enough to keep following us in this journey.”
Lisel, Angels On the Slope: Lisel is the solo project of experimental producer and artist Eliza Bagg, known as half of the band Pavo Pavo. During the past few years, she’s collaborated with the likes of Helado Negro and Julianna Barwick, as well as working on her skills as a classical singer by performing in avant-garde operas. “My main instrument is my voice, not a keyboard or a guitar, so I wanted it to be the genesis of every song,” she explains. “I was trying to use the resources I had within me, within my body, to make something that feels true about the way we live our lives now, in 2019. That’s why I wanted to focus on my voice – I wanted each song to be literally made out of me.”
After the existential dread of 2013’s The Terror and the run-of-the-mill psych-pop of 2017’s Oczy Mlody, King’s Mouth is a welcome return to form for The Flaming Lips. Originally issued for Record Store Day this April as a limited run of 4,000 gold-colored vinyls, King’s Mouth sees the band embarking on the kind of eccentric, over-the-top, goofy psychedelic ride they became known for. Narrated by The Clash’s Mick Jones of all people, this concept album, a sort of accompaniment to frontman Wayne Coyne’s art exhibit and children’s storybook of the same name, tells the story of a king with a giant head who devours the whole universe. It’s not the most meaningful and profound narrative the band have conjured up, but it’s an endlessly enjoyable and engaging larger-than-life journey that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome at 41 minutes. From short, playful cuts like ‘Feedaloodum Beetle Dot’ to the tongue-in-cheek ‘Giant Baby’ or the memorable near-6-minute highlight ‘The Sparrow’ and the genuinely heartfelt closer ‘How Can A Head?’, this one’s definitely gonna go down as a late-career classic for the Lips.
Fans have been waiting seventeen long years for the release of The Lost Tapes 2, a sequel to the 2002 fan-favorite The Lost Tapes which compiled songs that did not make it into Nas’ albums. The follow-up to last year’s underwhelming, Kanye West-produced Nasir will most probably not disappoint those hardcore fans: it’s a whole hour of mostly consistent though not outstanding material. There is nothing on The Lost Tapes 2 that is outright terrible or even bad (except perhaps the awkward ‘Adult Film’ ft. Swizz Beats), but it’s safe to say it might test the patience of more casual fans, as Nas competently raps about familiar topics over serviceable beats (see ‘Lost Freestyle’ and opener ‘Bad Energy’). There are exceptions, like the surprisingly jazzy ‘Jarreau of Rap (Skatt Attack)’, a stand-out in the tracklisting if only for its unusual flow, or the more nostalgic ‘Queens Wolf’. For the most part, though, The Lost Tapes 2 is just okay.
It’s rare that a debut album is as fierce yet vulnerable as Ada Lea’s impressive what we say in private. Musically, the record sits somewhere between the righteous punk rock energy of Sleater-Kinney and the raw acoustic intimacy of Big Thief while still remaining an incredibly cohesive listen. But what takes this effort to another level is the fact that Ada Lea manages to inject even the most seemingly straightforward and infectious moments with wildly experimental left turns, like on the stunning ‘wild heart’ or the explosive ‘for real now (not pretend)’. The result of a 180-day period of intense introspection following a break-up, the album also lyrically explores deeply personal themes, like on the perfectly hushed ‘the party’ or the diary-like ‘180 days’, where she sings: “I want the days to go by/ Half the year to be precise/ I wanna spend all my time/ Keepin’ track of cycles of moon and sky/ Smash your head on the pavement/ Just to feel near to something new”. And then there’s the stand-out single ‘what makes me sad’, with its soul-crushing refrain and powerful instrumental, or the beautifully poetic ‘yanking the pearls off around my neck…’. For the sake of being somewhat optimistic, when all is said and done, there is hope for catharsis after all the pain and heartbreak.
Emotional Education‘s defining moment comes late on the album, on the penultimate track ‘Saddest Generation’: “One in four, one in four/ We must be the saddest generation/ Is there any hope for us all?/ One in four, one in four/ Where is the emotional education we’re all looking for?”. Like many other so-called smart-pop acts of our time, the duo IDER do their best on their debut album to capture the specific kind of generational melancholy that defines millennials, evoking the likes of Lorde and labelmates Chvrches. There’s not much that sonically separates them from such electropop outfits, except for the notable chemistry between Megan Markwick and Lily Somerville, but they definitely achieve what they’re going for conceptually. What’s more, the hooks on tracks like ‘Wu Baby’ and ‘Invincible’ are nothing if not memorable, while the duo’s soft side also shines on the album’s more laid-back moments, namely the hopeful ‘You’ve Got Your Whole Life Ahead of You Baby’ or the piano-led ‘Body Love’ that’s reminiscent of Ghost Stories-era Coldplay (I take that as a good thing, for the record) and might as well be the album’s most affecting moment. Though the album occasionally veers off into generic territory (‘Swim’), there is definitely potential here.
