Feel a pang of terror when you see a SiM album called HOOMAN AFTER ALL, featuring song titles like Karen’s Son and The Sniffing Cats Ska. Their mix of J-rock, alt-metal, pop-punk and reggae already feels borne from a ‘lol epic random’ mindset without getting explicitly quirk-chungus with it. Like, yeah, people like their cover of the Attack On Titan song, but surely there’s a limit to what can be tolerated.
Then again, SiM hail from a nation whose rock exports seldom have ‘restraint’ or ‘self-control’ in their vocabulary, so maybe this is what the listeners want. But even so, the insanity of most Japanese bands comes with a maximalist flavour to match up. SiM, meanwhile, are getting their kicks on HOOMAN AFTER ALL by channelling the sort of millennial cringe that taints everything else around them in their genre pile-up. Despite not being strictly a comedy band, they give off the impression that they want to be judged on the same page as one.
So, let’s indulge them, then. SiM actually are very similar to most comedy bands—not funny in the slightest, and nowhere near musically gifted enough to cover for it. Call it ‘subjective’ like all humour is, but if you genuinely find yourself laughing with a song like Karen’s Son, you might legitimately be a lost cause. This is a kiss-off where the wham line is “Now it’s become so apparent / That your mom’s named Karen”, made all the more toe-curlingly cringe when it’s framed as a high-school scenario from this band of 40-year-olds. If that were all, it’d be plenty. Unfortunately, there’s more abstract humiliation to deal with, like the one-two of cat-related numbers in The Sniffing Cats Ska and the title track, the latter being a special case with its post-chorus breakdown of meows. Maybe the worst is BLACK SUBMARINE, though, a mugging rap-rock nightmare that forgets to do much more than sound so intensely, irritatingly pleased with itself. A trepanning would be less painful than some of these line deliveries.
A lot of SiM’s true obnoxiousness ties back to frontman MAH, a performer whose instincts for zany, out-of-pocket decisions frequently get the better of him. Unsurprisingly, it’s the reggae stuff. The genre does have a history in Japan, to be fair, but SiM’s take on it feels so mercenary in how it sits amongst everything else. When it’s so thickly put-on like on DALALA and HOLD MY BEER, you wonder whether it’s just being treated as another bit, and therefore, whether it should be here at all. Given SiM’s penchant for ‘wackiness’, adopting an obvious Caribbean patois and talking about being taken to Zion doesn’t feel like a cultural exchange handled with the utmost sensitivity.
As for the rest, it’s not too bad. You get the impression that SiM want to be the Japanese equivalent of Zebrahead, and while that’s an odd goal to strive for 20-odd years past their own peak, they do a reasonable job. They dial up their alt-metal side for FIVE TIMES DEAD (by my wallet) and GHOST iN TOKYO while retaining their big, zippy styles. Karen’s Son, meanwhile, separated from its heinous lyrics, is a really bright, tight little pop-punk track, heavy on the gloss and low on flab. Where SiM actually knuckle down and fix on a sturdy-yet-snappy J-rock formula, they don’t irritate nearly as much.
Unfortunately, the quirks of HOOMAN AFTER ALL are quick to draw all of that oxygen into themselves, likely by design. Thus, you’re left with a patchwork album that barely stands on its own merits, instead relying on some truly awful moments to fluff itself up. Even by the standards of a band who’ve rarely delivered a dignified listen, HOOMAN AFTER ALL just feels so lame. SiM aren’t exciting, or funny, or even all that entertaining in a way you couldn’t get from countless others. Other than having more clangers on a single album than anyone rightfully should, they’ve got nothing.
For fans of: Zebrahead, Skindred, coldrain
‘HOOMAN AFTER ALL’ by SiM is released on 2nd September on UNFD.
Words by Luke Nuttall
