Japan is one of those weird places that seems to have it's own version of everything else. Be it their high fashion, good taste or profound moral code they definitely have their own way of doing things. This applies even moreso to their music scene where they have basically every genre under the sun, only their way.

Enter Sex Machineguns. Taking a que from the Heavy Metal bands from the 80's and ramping it up while throwing in some Japanese humour which you may not be able to understand in the lyrics, but is implemented well enough that you can hear it in the music. Though with song titles like the opener S.H.R. - Sexy Hero Revolution and its fantastic video that rips off Thriller it's sometimes a bit obvious. Midori no Obachan keeps up the ridiculously OTT form of the opener, with vocalist Anchang going for big high pitched wails and other trademarked metal clichés. After the blistering Ohkami to Kirigirisu we arrive at one of the highlights of the album, the near 8 minute Punch DE Love @ Attack which is epic in that old Heavy Metal way, with big vocals and lots of guitar work. Unfortunately a little dip happens with the next few songs before the (comically) angry Salaryman Arashi, presumably having a poke at all the office workers and their humdrum working situation. Tabetai Nametai Kikenchitai has qualities that lend itself well to a live singalong track with its chorus, and general stick-in-the-head catchiness. Fire kicks off with a kind of long and unneeded intro before launching into another fast paced, borderline Thrash tune (or a really, really fast Maiden song) that doesn't seem like it's really 7 minutes long. After a really long outro the last track appears, presumably meant to be a hidden extra. Zenkoku Taikai starts sounding quite... well... we'll go with vintage with everything being panned straight down the middle until about 3 minutes in where the whole track widens out. It's a pretty cool effect, with both sounds working well with the song with doesn't take itself all that seriously.

Barbe-Q Michael is a pretty good listen if you're a metal fan of any description. As mentioned its humour shines through really well, but it doesn't detract from the songs which are really well played. The dip in the middle lets it down a bit as the songs seem a bit too much like fillers, but the rest more than make up for it. If you get the chance go look up some of their music videos, which are so OTT you can't not like them.