In this debut album, Tokyo experimental five-piece Haimidori show obvious echoes of 1980s Bristol post-punks The Pop Group in the discordant sax farts, as well as the mixture of funk, punk and strangled vocals; but, they are by no means limited by those influences. "Umuhito Umareruhito" is less a roller coaster than it is a bumper-car ride, ricocheting between musical styles, as in "Inakamatsuri" with its tortured vocals yowling over a twisted parody of Japanese festival music that gives way to a pounding, early Beefheart style blues stomp. Elsewhere Haimidori continue their aural assault from every possible angle, from the brutal punk a capella of "Umaretesugu Mareta" to the fragmented swing jazz-meets-hardcore of "Obake."
Still, despite the uncompromising nature of most of "Umuhito Umareruhito," Haimidori seem to have their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks. Shades of eccentric prog-rock legends Gong abound in the frequent incursions of silly-voiced spoken-word interludes, and the lyrics seem to be mostly comprised of indecipherable, Dadaist imagery and faux-naive call-and-response routines that sound like someone surfing a dozen channels of anime. The end result is a violently fun push and shove through a gamut of styles, and for those with a stiff enough constitution to make it to the end, Haimidori even reward you with "Lovelove Sotsugyoushiki," a proper pop song with a chorus and everything, albeit delivered with lashings of Zappa-esque sarcasm.
