Murfreesboro’s crass, storage-space-savvy, pogo-punk-metal, anime-nerdcore sextet The Oi!takus recently treated the area with a worthwhile debut, The Oi!takus EP, self-produced, mastered at Chaser Audio and released in July 2021.
Metal punk af, The Oi!takus EP sounds of a youthful Rancid/The Bastards-influenced punk take mixed with a hyper Motorhead influence played at, approximately, a 70/30 punk-to-metal ratio, with a similar precision-to-grunginess ratio. The sophomoric lyrics should appeal to the manga fans in the Murfreesboro punk-metal scene for the EP’s entire nine minutes and five seconds. Each track, averaging a minute and a half, can proudly stand on its own, while together making a solid, angst-infused punk “EPic” (an epic EP).
“Hi! Do you like punk? Do you like anime? Then you’re going to fucking hate this,” warns Parker Lampley, The Oi!takus’ anime girl voice, before the opener, “M.C.F.G,” takes us to school describing the Music City freaks and geeks scene in The Oi!takus’ punk brevity.
Lyrically, “Shower Chan” is for the inner Killer Mike/El-P dialogue deep in all of us, but as an Oi!takus’ topical call-and-response reporting hygiene issues, presumably at the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention.
“Showers are sexy! Take one today!” Lampley declares.
An even more lazily lyricized “Manga Man”—manga refers to Japanese graphic novels and comics—follows, sounding as if Lars Frederiksen (of Rancid and The Bastards) would ever screech out lyrics about someone having a “manga girlfriend.”
“Calm down son, it’s just a drawing!” Lampley says.
Oi!takus’ manga-genre-specific theme shines even more in “Say No to Boku no Pico.” Boku No Pico is a Japanese anime mini-series that began in 1999, according to IMDB, as well as a sexually explicit Hentai variety of animation, sometimes involving young boys and girls. This makes the song title sound self-explanatory enough, but Oi!takus likes to loudly clarify Die! Die! Die! . . . all you anime pedos . . . You’ve got me so pissed off like Broly. Broly is a very piss-off-able father figure character from Dragon Ball Z, referenced appropriately in the midst of Stooges-tinged rhythm guitar and a short and sweet Devo-punk-style instrumental break from Oi!takus guitarists Joe Stimac and Hayden Gist.
The punk call-and-response style continues between vocalists Spike Slyme and Hunter “Master” Bates on “Take to the Skies (With Ya Fine Metal Ass),” an anthemic, romantic punk ballad that encapsulates the Oi!takus experience (in two minutes, 16 seconds).
Find The Oi!takus EP at theoitakus.bandcamp.com.
