Score: 3.5/10
37500 Yens are, to be brief, two blokes from France. To expand on this, 37500 Yens are comprised of two young men from Reims. Excuse the stereotyping now, but whenever I think of instrumentalists from France, I still think of the slightly dandyish but ever so arty image of Parisians Arca, you know, the two young men who are “inspired by music, cinema, literature, photographs, daily occidental sounds,” so imagine my surprise when I was met with the image of two metal-esque chaps, one even had dreadlocks, yes dreadlocks, like that fellow out of P.O.D, or Newton Faulkner, if you’re looking for a pop-friendly approach to the hair style.
Now, I usually refrain from embarking on linking seemingly “random” thoughts about a band to other bands. In fact, I do not think I have ever mentioned a band member’s hair in a review. This isn’t something I’m proud of, I’ll admit it, but all of this “filler” basically comes down to the fact that I don’t have much to say about 37500 Yens, and I’ve noticed that other reviewers have fallen into this trap as well. Admittedly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with their music, they’re clearly very talented young men, it’s just that Astero is inexplicably dull. Sure, it ticks the right boxes, if you like your math rock to have a heavy foundation (think Russian Circles) then you may be interested in hearing this, but the problem I have is this: it’d be far more fruitful to just slip a Russian Circles disc into your CD player (or CD drive, if that’s how you roll) than to really bother with this thing. I’m not suggesting that I dislike the record, parts of it are okay and it provides a decent mix of the aforementioned math-rock archetypes with elements of jazzy Acoustic Ladyland madness and even the intensity of At The Drive-In, but it is not a record I would specifically recommend to anyone, nor is it something I would listen to if I wasn't reviewing it. This does seem incredibly close-minded, I realize, that to deny listening to a piece of music may seem that I have a somewhat blinkered vision towards 37500 Yens and their style, but it’s just that their music could easily be heard on other, better records, by better artists.
The sheer amount of “I’s” I’ve employed in this review means I’m verging (there we go again) on making this piece more about myself than the French duo I’m attempting to write and I admit I’ve failed in taking a rather French point of view in this album -- I think it was Baudelaire who suggested that “the man of the world” is an ‘I’ with an insatiable interest with the ‘non-I’, I’m paraphrasing here, but anyway. Rather than closing this review with a witty remark about how 37500 yens is a real bargain for what this duo are offering, I will just leave you with this; if you feel you disagree with my comments, you may well be right, if you really feel the urge to check this record out then do it and if a friend informs you that 37500 Yens are the greatest band they have ever heard, take what they say with a pinch of salt, just as you should do with my opinion.
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