Final Exit (Japan) - ノイズの若大将 (Young Guy of Noize) (2020)

Movies often serve as an inspiration for grindcore bands. Grind albums are littered with film dialogue samples, bands like Repulsion take their name from films, and bands even occasionally use a still from a film as an album cover. And as is befitting grindcore's chosen subject matter, these films are predominantly in the horror genre. 

Long-running Japanese noisegrind stalwarts Final Exit, however, take a different approach. Their new LP Young Guy of Noize blends fragmented noisegrind with smooth, competent surf rock. It also, unusually enough, serves as a tribute to a long-running Japanese film series known as the Wakadaishō movies (often localized as "Young Guy" in English).

The furthest thing from horror, these were a series of teen-oriented Japanese comedy/romance films. They followed a young, preternaturally talented sports star facing a variety of sports and romance-related trials and tribulations. Starting at their height in the 1960s through most of the 1970s, they starred actor Yūzō Kayama as the titular Young Guy. They were similarly lighthearted counterparts to American beach party movies and high school comedies, and followed similar shifts in culture. 

The first film in the series, 1961's Daigaku no Wakadaishō focuses on the Young Guy's struggles and triumphs against his sports rival Aodaishō, while 1965's Ereki no Wakadaishō sees him become an electric guitar wizard, influenced by the Japanese popularity of instrumental rock group The Ventures and the global popularity of The Beatles. Kayama threw himself into the role, learning the guitar and forming his own band, The Launchers. This catapaulted Kayama into a second career as a musician, with one of his singles, "Kimi to Itsumademo" (aka "Love Forever") selling two million copies and becoming the best-selling single in the country up to that point.

Kayama's role as a surf rock guitarist is clearly as much of an influence here as his film role as the Young Guy. Surf rock riffs are a littered among the noisegrind, and the album's centerpiece is a cover of The Launchers song "Black Sand Beach", the instrumental rock tune for which they're most famous. The cover is played straight, and is a competent instrumental surf rock jam.

When they aren't riding the smooth sounds of surf,

these songs are roiling with feedback and blastbeats. Tracks like "Some 'Waka' Songs #1" bristle with microsongs, fracturing into bursts of noise and screaming, cresting with a surf riff and crashing into the shore of more blastbeats. "Young Guy of Eleki," tribute to the aforementioned Ereki no Wakadaishō, most embraces the hybridization of grindcore and surf rock. "Wipe Out"-style drumming gives way to walls of feedback, classic surf riffs ride over a sprinting polka beat and melodic singing blends with screaming and blasts.

Like the film series it pays tribute to, Young Guy of Noize isn't trying to sell itself to an audience that isn't already interested in its brand of fun. But also like the Wakadaishō movies, it's got a lot to offer the right fan. If this blend of microsong noisegrind and '60s instrumental rock sounds like your thing, it probably is, and it's worth the chance to find out.

Young Guy of Noize is available digitally and physically through Final Exit's Bandcamp.