Timothy David, of Bathroom of the Future, is a big fan of Gundam. Being personally involved with part of this project (I illustrated the album cover), I wanted to find someone who could speak to both the pop-punk nature of this album, as well as the world of Gundam which it directly pulls from. Tim heartily agreed to take a listen, and came back with this stellar review! – Jeff Sorley (editor)
OUTLOUD! RECORDS – 03 Jan 2021
Classic Ramonescore side project offering a rich experience for Gundam fans, and catchy tunes for everyone else
Punk rock’s wholehearted embrace of many aspects of nerd culture has long permeated the genre. From Johnny Ramone wearing Captain America t-shirts on stage, to Lars Fredriksen using his social media pages to trade GI Joe figures, to the very existence of bands with names like The Proton Packs, punks have long embraced their more uncool hobbies both musically and personally.
In the spirit of their fellow punks who have interests beyond chewing bubblegum and scarfing pizza, Patrick McVay (known for his work in The Putz) unleashes his newest project: Spacenoidz. The name, derived from the preferred nomenclature for those born in space colonies during the Universal Century (please don’t call them “spacemen”), reflects the subject matter of this LP – a concept album detailing the events of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, a landmark mecha anime series.
If any of that sentence made sense to you, you’re going to have a great time. The songs cover key events of the original One Year War, from the inciting drop of an entire colony onto the city of Sydney, Australia to the climactic battle of A Baoa Qu, all with Patrick’s signature sense of melody and concise but evocative lyrics. The whole affair seems like a more focused take on The Lillingtons classic Death By Television, veering fairly effortlessly from harder-edged material (“Colony Drop”, “Black Tri-Stars”) to more bittersweet or optimistic tones (“Goodbye, Miss Matilda”, “Newtype”) while still maintaining a cohesive approach throughout.
Where their understanding and love of the source material really shines is how the music and lyrics match up seamlessly – the harder, faster songs match up with the darker parts of the series, while the catchier songs reflect the more emotional moments, helping to cover the wide breadth of subject matter and tonal changes of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series and movies. So while the music isn’t any big departure from other, similar acts dabbling in sci-fi or horror imagery (Horror Section, the aforementioned Lillingtons, McVay’s own The Putz, etc), the songs are well-crafted, memorable, and evocative. Frankly, it’s just impressive to hear Gundam references worked so well into the lyrics – I didn’t expect to encounter a song that turns Ramba Ral’s fan-favorite battle cry “this is NO ZAKU, boy!” into one of the catchiest choruses in pop-punk, but life is full of little surprises like that.
This brings it all back around to the big question – should you listen to this even if you’re not a Gundam fan? The answer is still yes, especially if you enjoy throwback Ramonescore-type pop punk – the songs are well-written and engaging enough to be catchy and interesting to anyone who encounters them, even if they have no idea exactly what a Zaku is or why we’re all so sad about Miss Matilda (and we are all still very sad, to this day). Listeners who have already spent all their time and money decorating their rooms with plastic robot models will find the whole experience much deeper and more rewarding, but it shouldn’t put off any old-timey punk fans who don’t already know what a Spacenoid is.
And who knows? Maybe you’ll like this album enough to start building Gundam models, or at least hopping on Netflix to watch the original movie trilogy (which edits the original 43 episodes into three, ~2.5hr films – ed.). If the Ramones’ Road to Ruin was enough to inspire tons of us to pick up an instrument, Spacenoidz may just be enough to inspire some to buy a pair of plastic snips and build some robot models.
