Nothing bad to say about these ‘Little Monsters’

• Little Monsters Under Your Bed
• Itchyworms
Kazoos are cheesy.

That small complaint aside, there’s really nothing bad to say about Little Monsters Under Your Bed, the debut album from Itchyworms. Local musical pranksters Jugs Jugueta, Jazz Nicolas, Kelvin Yu and Chino Singson have crafted (with the help of producers Buddy Zabala and Sancho) a fine disc of demented pop, sprinkled with musical and non-musical filler, as if to deflect accusations that they’ve gone commercial. Happy House was the song that got this band a lot of NU-107 attention a couple years back, and it’s on here, as is the whole menagerie of tongue-in-cheek ditties this band likes to perform live. They’re a silly band, in a way, who are musically smart behind their smirks, which makes this album fun to listen to, party to, drive to – whatever.

Of course, the kazoos are cheesy; Jazz Nicolas, the drummer and songwriter, no doubt knows this. That’s why the kazoo chorus brings in Happy Birthday, a sing-along romp propelled by a jazz lounge guitar riff. All kinds of musical surprises can be found on Little Monsters Under Your Bed: the little Mexican hat dance that breaks out in the middle of Antipara; the "chaos section" which blasts its way through the middle of Find and Seek. There are nice instrumental touches, like the manic time signatures of the opener, Mellow Carousel (which go from 4/4 to 3/4, then doubletime to 8/4). And is Angry Mob 12 Inch Remix really their tribute to EDSA 2 and 3? That’s my guess.

Beneath and between all the tomfoolery, Itchyworms love crafting pop songs, which makes the Eraserheads comparison inevitable. I detect similarities between the vocals of Jugs and Ely Buendia at times, sure; but the local press has really got to get beyond their trusty (and dusty) E-heads comparisons. Just because a band plays pop with some wit and guitars, they are NOT "like the E-heads." (Then again, E-heads bassist Buddy did produce the album, so…) So look, a band is a band: the sum of its parts. The Eraserheads sound the way they do because of the interplay of Ely, Raymund, Marcus and Buddy. Same for the Itchyworms. I can tell you that I hear strains of British New Wave in Jazz’s songwriting (XTC, Madness, The Jam, et al). But there’s more than influences going on in any musician. A love of pop form, for instance, that is timeless. (e.g, the countdown bits in Headlights, or the pop-perfect refrain "What does a caveman do?" or the songcraft displayed in I Found You and Not Much.)

Displaying the usual Filipino impatience with empty spaces, the band fills the cracks between each track with little sound bits, some entertaining, some not so. (I’m sure they were all huge fun for the makers of the record, though.) There are short solo pieces for guitar, bass, and any other musical instrument the Itchyworms could lay hands on. On this album, at least, the band map out their own little pop world, and as the CD cover art would indicate, it’s a world where monsters may have green eyes and fangs, but they’re not that scary, after all.

I’m serious about the kazoos, though: chee-zee.