Melt-Banana describe their third self-released album as "pop and nice," a claim to which numerous incredulous subscribers to the band's mailing list have replied, "No pop!" and "Extreme, please!" This angular Pythagorean-core HC quartet supposes that the words "pop" and "nice" have slightly different nuances those outside their native Japan are failing to see; perhaps they mean "pop" not in the Celine Dion sense, but in the Andy Warhol sense, "nice" not as in smashing a bunch of garbage together and expecting fans to swallow it out of habit, but as in well-crafted, hairball mania. Even as the band acknowledges that Teeny Shiny is punk, noisy, screeching, and fast, they steadfastly maintain that it is pop and nice for them. Though a mad scientist from 2788 has given vocalist / lyricist Yako a heart the size of a lion's (engorged with futuristic steroids) and her voice goes spitting and whizzing above it all as 5,000 volts surge through her skinny torso; and given that the mad scientist has screwed with guitarist Agata's brain so that his guitar-playing resembles a synth and two turntables; and taking into account the Melt-Banana rhythm section's ability to keep up with a machine gun demonstration without breaking a sweat - conditions that all apply to Teeny Shiny, fictionalized or not - they're not backing down from the assertion that their new album is pop and nice. Sometimes you just gotta trust people.