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Mainliner

The aural equivalent of an acid-tinged adrenaline shot to the jugular, Mainliner will give you white flashes of ecstasy before dragging you down in the gravel. This is some intense heavy psych. The riffs are at times so distorted that they are difficult to make out and become a short blast of noise. Some will believe their speakers are being destroyed by the in-the-red level of noise on display. When the melodies are discernable, they are so heavy and pounding that they will affect the part of your brains which makes you headbang. Some of the group's albums are of the stoner, almost doom metal variety (like a highly dense, unstable dose of Black Sabbath) while others border on punk.

At the time I started listening to Mainliner, I was already familiar with Acid Mothers Temple, another Makoto Kawabata project, but had never heard High Rise, the main project of colleague Asahito Nanjo (in fact I am still quite unfamiliar with him). I knew this would be over-the-top, but what I didn't expect was for it to be so groovy. The basic idea behind Mainliner is one riff repeated over and over again, one or two absolutely insane, eardrum-piercing guitar solos and some indistinguishable vocals heavily processed through reverb. It's simple, primitive but incredibly effective. The first time might be rough, but when you've experimented once, you'll need to come back to it like an addict needs his fix.

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