The Titans

Instant Disasters (Lance Rock)
by Jon Sarre

It doesn’t get much better than this: five skinny Japanese kids who come off as pretty goony when they’re tryin’ to look bad, so they name their band The Titans. Okay, then they (with the help of Teengenerate’s Fink) knock together twelve explosively overamped trashabilly gems and call the damn thing Instant Disasters. Is this just a bad translation? Is that what we’ve got here?

Seems there’s somethin’ screwy happenin’ here, sure as Titans front man, Motor Ken, pronounces the word “right” as “light” in the oddly-titled “I Can’t Tell You the Right” (and I swear I heard someone yell, “Lock and Loll!”). Whatever the broken English leaves out matters little, cuz the band’s maniac energy nearly always obscures the fuck outta whatever the mumbled lyrics are (I’m not even sure what language the Titans sing in, if any).

I probably could listen extra closely, but I’d rather infer what the song may be about from the title, especially when that song sounds like a more together (you could almost say “competent”) version of Pussy Galore’s “Die Bitch” (“No Way Out”) or a Funhouse outtake played backwards (“Take You Back”) or an English-As-a-Second-Language Rolling Stones strung out on meth (“Rip Off the Road Map”). For reasons probably only clear to themselves, the Titans also threw in a so-sloppy-it’s-perfect cover of X’s “Motel Room In My Bed” and a tribute to some Canadian band (U.I.C.’s “You Drive Me Mad”).

Best of all, much like their countrymen Muddy Frankenstein and Guitar Wolf (who, although great on record, are quite possibly the worst live band ever), the Titans are fun. Instant Disasters is a play-it-loud, messy, let’s-go-break-something-while-we’re-still-young slab of reelin’ and rockin’ action. Give it a spin the next time ya find yerself shit-faced and rambunctious (or just wishin’ ya were).