Awesome Song Of The Week! Peace by The Sparta Locals

So I'm back from Japan now and getting back into more of a regular schedule that doesn't involve failing to write a travel blog, so I'm incredibly happy to announce that I'll be starting a new series for The Tartar Sauce!

It's called Awesome Song of the Week! (The exclamation point is part of the title.) Every Thursday I'll be posting a link to a really really awesome song and giving a short writeup about it. Basically, this is a way for readers to hopefully get into some cool new music, and a way for me to flaunt my infinite knowledge of pop music. Wait, did I say "infinite knowledge of pop music"? Because I meant to say "ego." Anyway, these songs are obviously gonna reflect my personal taste, and if you consistently read this then you'll get some idea of what kinds of music I like, but hopefully you'll like some of it too. Also, I'm gonna try and keep the songs on the obscure side, not because I want to brag about how I listen to experimental Japanese new wave, but because I want people who've never heard experimental Japanese new wave to get into it. 

Anyway, here's the first installment! Let's see how it goes.

This week's song is "Peace" by the Sparta Locals. The reason I picked this song for the first installment is because it is, without question, my favorite song of all time. It is a perfect song. Just listen to it:

"Peace" contains everything that makes a good song good: it's upbeat; it's powerful; it's epic; it's got an outstanding melody and a driving rhythm; and it's insanely difficult to play. Seriously, listen to the guitar part after the first chanting part (around 1:30). You hear those really fast notes followed by those descending notes? Notice how there are two guitarists in the band? Well, both guitarists are playing those really fast notes. In fact, they ALTERNATE EACH FUCKING NOTE. The Sparta Locals are SUCH A TIGHT BAND. And the final section of the song that starts at 2:30... what more can I say than that it's absolutely brilliant. That section sounds like all hell is breaking loose and all the music is just exploding into an all consuming abyss. And yet it's still incredibly tight. That's just one thing that makes this song amazing. Also, I'm assuming the lyrics to "Peace" are really good too, because the singer is obviously really passionate about them.

Now just for some background info, the Sparta Locals are a recent Japanese indie/post-punk band who are hugely influenced by Gang of Four. Their overall sound is basically a faster, tighter version of Gang of Four that uses Asian pentatonic scales a lot of the time. They're from Fukuoka originally, but moved to Tokyo to become part of the music scene there. Sadly, the Sparta Locals recently announced that they will be breaking up. But at least they quit while they were ahead. Seriously, all their albums are good.

Now, I know what you may be thinking. "Oh, the pretentious music kid went for the obscure choice first." Yeah, it's true that the Sparta Locals are really fucking obscure. In fact, they're still basically underground in Japan. I only met one person there who had heard of them. But that's not why I picked this song first. As I said, this is my favorite song ever. It's my most played song in iTunes. Listen to it. Like, 500 times. 

On an unrelated note, I'm also planning on starting another series, but it won't be for at least a couple weeks. Until then, it's a secret. Also, I'll probably start doing web clippings too, whenever I have some good ones.