At first, I thought the men of Samurai Pizza Cats chose their ridiculous name at random, but after some rigorous research (typing in "Samurai Pizza Cats" into Google), they're named after a vintage anime known for humorous pop-culture joking and fourth-wall-breaking samurai cats who work at a pizzeria (???). Unlike their namesake, Samurai Pizza Cats have grown extremely popular in the electronicore/metalcore scene, garnering well over a hundred thousand monthly listeners, millions of streams, and a devoted fanbase for their upcoming sophomore album, "Press Start." This rather short LP is full of antics, shenanigans, and downright tomfoolery, not to mention actual metal, and I'm in a fun mood, so alas!

Every track is complete pandemonium, and our little narrator kick-starts it by inserting a coin into an arcade machine. This game is a quick one, as it takes barely half an hour to complete. Through those thirty minutes, I learned two things: firstly, SPC can turn the most juvenile of lyrics into the most enjoyable of tracks. There's an overwhelming amount of examples - how can a bridge concerning "the cheese, the cheese, the harmony," or a song called "Ramen Man" be so enjoyable? The answer is simple: you're listening to Samurai Pizza Cats. Circling back to the juvenile lyrics, they're VERY simplistic. It got to a point where the continuous A-B-A-B rhyme scheme sounded straight from Sora. While the lyrics may be lacking, they sure do know how to pick a crazy topic to jam to: ramen, pizza, superheroes, dinosaurs, and anything else a really cool 5th grader would tell you if you asked them to name their favorite things. Their ideas? Fresh and delightful. How they convey them? Predictible.

The second thing I learned from "Press Start" is that SPC are excellent musicians. No track is musically alike, which is one hell of a brag for metalcore. The band gets quite heavy on songs like "Fear No Slice," "T-Rex(plosion)," and "Ramen-Man." The last two tracks I mentioned featured guest artists who helped greatly. Ankor's Jessie Williams added some lovely, raspy screams, and BABYBEARD chipped in with some deep gutturals and even some Japanese. The band on their own can go heavy, too, but they've proven that synthwave, chiptune, djent, and alternative metal are in their grasp. Their instrumentals? Dynamic. Their metal? ...uhh, metal.

Samurai Pizza Cats have delivered a metalcore album that'll send any metalhead over the age of 30 into a coma, if their genre tags weren't enough. While I appreciate their eclecticism, they need to scrub up on their delivery.