Polysics

I was introduced to this band by a friend and for a while was hooked. Their haze of post-punk/new wave/electronica is unique, cartoony but intelligent and often mind-blowing, which of course reminds people of the band DEVO. The similarities to DEVO, however, go anywhere from extremely flattering moments of influence to downright offending plagiarism. For today's young alternative music lovers this band has a lot of shock value and creative attitude, but anyone familiar with the band's fathers, per se, will probably be confused that the band can be called anything like unique. Even many of their videos are very much alike with DEVO's, almost to the extent of embarrassment.

Take Polysics' wardrobe and artwork for instance: instantly recognizable by DEVO fans. Polysics looks more like a tribute band than anything.

And naturally a lot of Polysics' music is directly inspired by DEVO recordings, like their own cover of DEVO's cover of Secret Agent Man. The song literally sounds just like DEVO's, not to mention the number of other DEVO songs they've covered. Also, the song Polysics Or Die is suspicially like Jocko Homo, where the vocalists spell out the word POLYSICS.

But what's worse is the band has in the past couple years fallen prey to being big shots in the US, causing their usually quirky music to fall into the 'usual', excessively poppy commercialized affair.

Basically, if you don't mind near-copyright infringment and want some extra DEVO fix, check this band out; don't get me wrong, they're very talented and I own a number of their releases which I enjoy, but sometimes the likeness is just too much.

I've heard the Polysics described as a Japanese Devo.
Definitely their look is very reminiscent.

I've seen countless groups live but THIS is the group that sticks out in my mind when I think of truly fantastic live performances.

The Polysics offer a flurry of over the top excitement, they seem to be having an absolute blast and the time of their lives, and they really come off as if they personally need each member of the audience to love them unconditionally.

Seeing them live is sort of like seeing a gang of seven year olds gone crazy with musical instruments and desperately wanting to impress everyone. BUT I mean that in the most wonderful way possible.

Over the top crowd surfing, weird asides to the audience, insane fast beats, screams of Pseudo-Japanese, and the masters of asking their audience to do stupid and over the top things, and getting everyone to actually play along.

Maybe that's their secret - they turn the audience into playful seven year olds, and from then on everything is easy.

Fantastic music. Playful senses of humour. The best cover of My Sharona ever.