"The band has gone through enough personnel changes to rival The Cure, but the trio on these two releases...Reck, Hige, and guitarist Masatoshi Tsunematsu...is widely considered to be the "classic" lineup. Their Ryuichi Sakamoto produced debut offers ample evidence to support this claim, starting right off with the first track, "A-Gas." Taking the building blocks of rock 'n' roll and meticulously rearranging them into a simple but hostile mess, the track's full of distinctive flashes of dark brilliance: Reck's spastic bass and convulsive vocal asides, Hige's stark refusal to provide a consistent, predictable rhythm, and Tsunematsu's jagged, harsh scratching. After establishing their willingness to be obnoxiously disorienting, they jump feet first into the soaring momentum of "オートマチック・フラ" ("Automatic-Fru,") a less confrontational but no less aggressive tune that builds up some old fashioned rock steam.
The high points are many: "Cool Fool" is unexplainable bizarre: a guitar riff that has no business being a guitar riff scrapes along as Reck growls, barks, and babbles, invoking what could only be called a sincere Johnny Rotten, difficult as that may be to imagine. "100年" ("100 Years") takes cranky verses and welds them to a brief, almost positive chorus that is only a hair away from The Stones' "Brown Sugar." "Big-S" is a mechanical yet weirdly elastic bit of minimalist nihilism that lists assorted suicide locations between jumpy, panicked musical digressions. It's simultaneously thrilling and challenging, a dark, depressive sound that avoids ponderousness through sharp, confident energy."
- Text from Jrawk
Named 21th Greatest Japanese Rock Album of All Time by Rolling Stone Japan and 3rd greatest by Takarajima
Friction - 軋轢
- A-GAS
- オートマチック・フラ [AUTOMATIC FRU]
- I CAN TELL
- 100年 [100 Years]
- CRAZY DREAM
- CYCLE DANCE
- COOL FOOL
- NO THRILL
- BIG-S
- OUT
