Earth Blow : Rollin' God

Dirty fuzzy cock-rock attack; produced by Atsuo, with a sound in the neighborhood of 'Heavy Rocks' Boris, GREENMACHiNE, Barebones and Stupid Babies Go Mad. A 2006 release.

ROLLIN' GOD

Boris : Vein (Hardcore & Drone)

Vein (hardcore) is Boris's take on the fuzzy, distorted extremes of Japanese hardcore. Minute long blasts of furious riffs & screams smothered in a lovely thick blanket of static and buzz. I quite enjoyed this release. The Drone version does less for me (it just sort of goes and goes and goes...wait, you mean that's the point of drone? Hmm.), but I've upped it for the sake of completeness.





VEIN :

HARDCORE

DRONE

Barebones : Ground

Barebones are best known in the west for their split with Boris. At that point in their career, Barebones were still largely a hardcore band, though in a similar progression to Boris's, they would move their sound in the direction of garage/psych/70's cock-rock a la some of Pink and Heavy Rocks(and in fact their excellent 2007 release, Back In Your Black, was produced by Atsuo).

Ground finds them midway through the transition, with a lot of rock elements in place, but still maintaining much of the volume and spastic intensity of their hardcore roots (somewhere between Stupid Babies Go Mad and Boris maybe.)





GROUND


And here's a bonus kick-ass Barebones song from a tribute album to Japanese punk legend Masami.


Random

GREENMACHiNE : The Earth Beater + 3

Because of their association with Boris and Eternal Elysium, their Kyuss derived band name, their intermittent use of doom riffs, and their apparent love for the devil weed (song titles like 'Slow Burn', 'Machinist's Smoke', 'Red Eye', and 'Hempty God, Return to the Sky'), GREENMACHiNE are often pegged as a stoner/doom band, but, though they incorporate elements of those styles, the backbone and raging heart of GREENMACHiNE's music is hardcore--inflected with Sabbithian noodling and occasional doomish slow-downs to be sure, but hardcore nonetheless.

I was lucky enough to see GREENMACHiNE several times in Tokyo, and appearance-wise they were nothing exceptional--slap some suits on and they'd fade into the salaryman crowds--but their shows were furious, intense and definitely constitute some of my better live music experiences.

A taste:

The Earth Beater was originally released in '99, this is a 2004 re-release with three extra tracks. Greenmachine are now, sadly, defunct but have two other full lengths that are also very good--especially 2004's The Archive of Rotten Blues (which incidentally is also just a great title for an album). Excellent angry stuff with great tone and texture.



THE EARTH BEATER PLUS THREE

V.A. : From Koenji To Eternity

A mid-nineties snapshot of Japanese underground experimental stoner, noise and punk from Inoxia.

The most famous name on here is Boris, who deliver 3 minutes of ambient sound w/ creepy narration plus two minutes of hardcore on their track. Konk&Null (more or less Zeni Geva) have two tracks of their odd noise/industrial rock. The other bands on hear are less famous, and some only seem to have this release to their names.




OAC, who also contributed to Bacteria Sour II, have three songs of fairly straightforward punk. Gaji's, Kirihito's & Mustard Masturbation's songs are oddball spaced-out rock experiments.

All in all an interesting variety, with a few standout songs.

From Koenji To Eternity

Stupid Babies Go Mad : Burn Up The World

Driving punk&roll, see the Stooges, Motorhead, GG Allin. Really wild and energetic band who were a blast to see live. Fuzzy garage production courtesy of Boris's Atsuo.


Burn Up The World