smörgåsbord

From Sapporo (on the northern island of Hokkaido), CTR play guttural, raw, anti-social god-son of GISM punk, and put a lot of effort into their outfits, poster design and live performances that seem to involve chainsaws and smashing stuff. CTR takes its name from the 1980 movie 狂い咲きサンダーロード, or Crazy Thunder Road 「the Japanese reads literally, and somewhat poetically, madness(狂い）blooms/flowers(咲き）」. The lead singer was formerly in Knucklehead.

I haven't seen this movie beyond a few youtube clips, but it, and CTR the band both definitely draw influence from Mad Max (which, though I won't got to the mat for it like I might for Conan the Barbarian, is nonetheless a pulp classic).

THUNDER ROAD

--

Very good Icelandic synth-pop with the right amount of bleakness in the bubble-gum. Includes a cover of 'Killing in the Name of'.

FM

--

Drum & Bass / Dubstep Mc & Producer, his favorite tracks of mine were done w/ producer TC, like several of the songs on here, and the one in the video below--which is not acually on this release, but is known to me from this excellent compilation.

Deep like Titanic

--

Cheap drum machine post-punk with fractured Americana guitars played by scraggly French hipsters. Claustrophobic, weird and on occasion rather catchy. The few throw-away tracks here are matched by some brilliant ones. I throughly enjoy this band.

s/t


--




Grimey British thuggery; the Mr. Slash produced tracks are especially worthwhile.




C for Cocaine

Kaiboushitsu

Fronted by long-serving Japanese punker and demi-god of crust, Crow (masked+listed under a pseudonym) and named for a Stalin song, Kaiboushitsu play dark old school hardcore punk.



The band's name translates as the 'dissection room' and their lyrics are a combination of splatter & sex: this was released on HG fact in 2009. Buy here.

CRANIUM CRANIUM CRANIUM

Trencherman

Pretty busy and no special recent enthusiasms to put up so here's a miscellaneous post of stuff I'd upped and forgotten to, or decided not to post, or upped for somebody, etc...  

------

Some more oddities from Finland:

Short drones & noise experiments from the NWOFHM :

HOT GUITARS

A rock band from the same label:

STRANGE TRIAL

------

(Post)Punk/Rock-n-Roll w/ some good guitar lines & awesome drumming (2005):

TIGER BEAR WOLF

------

Classic Burning Spirits Japanese hardcore band:

鉄 

------

Industrial/HC/Postrock:

Previously posted here.

buy (Japanese Amazon ships worldwide & has an option for English)

LOST

------

Last 　album from these guys:

セラピ

-----

Zouo were contemporaries of and not dissimilar in sound to GISM:

ZOUO

And Zouo's more metal successor:

DANSE MACABRE

-----

Female fronted Shoegazey indie rock/electronic band

LETHE

buy

------

Thuggish Parisian Metal/HC. Who's running the show? These guys, that's who:

LES 150...

------

DHR released (but nonetheless slow) german 'rap'/noisy electronics from '99. Weird fractured rhythms and odd FX (and surprisingly anticipatory of later grime stuff). Grew on me:

TOO BAD BUT TRUE

Monkey Son of a Donkey : Way Down

Dissipated Israeli lo-fi garage/punk/rock from the same label as the somewhat similarly raw and echoey Los Kikes. An excellent shambling mess of fuck-off lyrics, lurching guitars and drug retard vocals. I didn't really like this at first but a few listens convinced me of its weird charm.

Going Down was released in 2006, and was the band's first full-length after 2 eps.
They split in 2007.

note: (I couldn't tag the songs which have Hebrew titles, but the titles are in the scans which are in the .rar - there are lyrics too, but I didn't feel like scanning everything so if you need to know then purchase here)




WAY DOWN

Wait, I Still Function...

And here are one and a half excellent 7-inches from ORdER, of Japan's Aichi-ken. Their recently re-released full-length is solid, but their singles and splits my favorites. Space Junk from the Warhead (whose song is also good) split is an overdriven romp, while the Sex 7"'s songs are hookier, less distorted and include a slammin' Japanese language version of 'Stepping Stone'.

SEX 7"


SPLIT w/ WARHEAD

Fuck Disco Beats

...While I kinda agree with the sentiment--the era was something of an aesthetic wasteland--I must admit that if I'd been alive I probably would have spent some of the late 70s bopping around in a tight white suit with a coke spoon nestled in my luxuriant chest hair.

The point being that the the Hunches are great; garage, punk and grunge taken to distorted extremes, with good songs under the thud and feedback. On this release 'Jakob's Voices' is especially good.


FUCK DISCO BEATS

Los Kikes

Now I love the surf/grind stylings of the Noise A Go Go's, so when I came across a cd by this Israeli band described as a surf/death combination, I had to pick it up.



Their self-titled release is a tinny, lo-fi affair, dedicated to booze, sex, violence and skating: cardboard drums played off-time, howling layers of black metalized vocal distortion and diseased surf guitars collide and fall down in a surprisingly appealing heap.



LOS KIKES

Mangrove 2002

A sampler from the Mangrove label, released, as you may already have deduced, in 2002, and containing a mix of noisy punk, garage, psych & hardcore from what seems to be a collection of mostly Tokyo area bands. Some of the more pop-punky stuff isn't really my bag, but there are some excellent tracks on here.

1 Evil Hoo Doo, The - Hell-O Haunted
2 Evil Hoo Doo, The - Black Strings
3 FirestARTer - Dear My Sweet Radio
4 Private Ways - Post
5 Usuals - Wasted Time
6 First Alert - T.V.Masturbation
7 First Alert - Pinpoint Attack On My Alarm Clock
8 Barebones - Mind Breaker
9 Smash Your Face - Can't Get Out
10 Smash Your Face - I Believe In My Way
11 Delta, The - Compressed Paradox Disorder
12 Boris - Dronevil
13 Death Comes Along - Death Comes Along Part Ⅰ
14 Death Comes Along - Death Comes Along Part Ⅱ
15 Deride - I'm Making My Future With The Border Patrol!
16 Foodchain - Naka-No
17 Nine Days Wonder - Bleach Away
18 Man Friday - Last Destroy Dawn (Live)
19 Man Friday - Hesitate To Have My Share (Live)

MANGROVE2002

(p.s.- medifire's been wonky as fuck for me: let me know if you fine people are having trouble dl'ing)

Smashing Odds Ness

Just a quickie collection of some solid Japanese hardcore punk from the late 80's.

Death Side naturally do the business, and I also rather like the Don Don & Idora tracks.

01. Idora - Double Bind
02. Idora - Absent Time
03. Don Don - Satisfy
04. Don Don - Destraction
05. Mink Oil - Heartbreak
06. Mink Oil - Youth of Hate
07. Crück - Stay
08. Death Side - Stick & Hole


SMASHING ODDS NESS

Noisepunk

Newish band from the former guitarist of the Bacillus Brains and Exclaim (from whence the drummer also came), with bass and vocals from the awesomely alliterative Nagasaki Nightmare (of Nervs and Breakfast) and produced by the Less Than TV guy.

This is furious noise-ridden, hardcore punk. Recommended.

(sample lyrics: 'from the asylum, find him, kill him, drag him out, kill him, kill'--not that they're trying to sound thugged-out, more 'smash the rotten system and hang the capitalist running dogs from lampposts' sort of stuff)

This is their second 7", released a few years back.

buy (1st 7")

RAVENS

Eye of the Thrash Guerrilla

This comp came out in '88 on Selfish and contains a good chunk of what was right with Japanese hardcore at the time. Death Side had awesome/utterly ridiculous hair (see below), SOB were not yet crappy, and while Crow hadn't quite evolved into the crusty smashing machine of later releases, they still played some good hardcore/punk as do all the bands on here.

1. DEATH SIDE "Black Lie"

2. DEATH SIDE "Mirror"

3. DEATH SIDE "Fool, Fool, Fool"

4. DEATH SIDE "Mass Media's Pets"

5. TETSU ARREY "No Machine Trouble"

6. TETSU ARREY "Dangers Latent"

7. TETSU ARREY "Sassy"

8. RAISE CAIN "Lost Child"

9. RAISE CAIN "Price of Trade"

10. RAISE CAIN "Nothing! Nothing!"

11. RAISE CAIN "S.D.I."

12. S.O.B. "(Just a) Nightmare"

13. S.O.B. "Mental Attitude"

14. S.O.B. "Humanity of Stupids"

15. NIGHTMARE "Positive Fact"

16. NIGHTMARE "お前"

17. NIGHTMARE "Keys to Mind"

18. NIGHTMARE "Give the Low to You"

19. CROW "Disgust"

20. CROW "Give Up All Hope-The Day of Annihilation"

21. CROW "I'm Looking Out Over"

22. CROW "Dance of Death"

23. CROW "Bloody Earth

EYE OF THE THRASH GUERILLA

Barebones : Speed Freak

Just a quickie 7" here, released on Mangrove in 2002. Barebones don't get too fancy, just high-velocity high-energy rawk/punk done well. Fits right in with Greenmachine, rockin' Boris, Earth Blow, etc...


SPEED FREAK

Finnish Genius

The heart of the New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal (also see Pharaoh Overlord & the superb Steel Mammoth), Circle sound different on every release of theirs I've heard. On this one blown-out electronics hum and ambient blips segue into glitch-shot, raging 80s-ish (check the bleak apocalyptic cover) hardcore punk and then back again over the course of 11 tracks; as always, Circle's take on a genre is weird and very enjoyable.

(due to my neanderthal-like incomprehension of moviemaker, the video is 1:00 longer than the actual song.)

PANIC

Miyama Gt : Shoot The Invaders

I got to know this band via their split with Chuugakuseikanoke (which I'll post on the by-and-by). Heavy, theatrical punk/hc/bunch of other stuff which reminds me a bit of Hi Technology Suicide & QP Crazy (the former bassplayer of legendary band The Stalin plays in QP, and Miyama show their Stalin love with a cover (track 4).

Miyama Gt, in their own words:

There was a dispute in Planet Miyama. Some decided to leave their mother planet and came to the planet earth. They disguised themselves as human and identify themselves as Ginshiro (Vo, Gt),Robert (Ba) and Momojiro (Dr) in order to invade the earth, taking noise as their weapon. When Miyama guitar shoot you with Miyama beam, all you can do is counting your rest of days till you get brainwashed from your head to toe.

(Good work, but not quite there: these guys could learn from Steel Mammoth and Ultraphallus)


SHOOT THE INVADERS


(Being lazy, I haven't tagged this is Engrish so here's a link)

Sunshine Super Scum : Two Reactions

Noisy, dissonant and off-kilter arty punk. Snotty shouted male/female vocals and lots of messy fuzz.

This is a 7" from '96. I previously posted some of their stuff here.


TWO REACTIONS

Don't send me flowers 'cause I ain't dead yet...

Just busy with work, vacations and other life-related stuff. Will try to post more in August.

For now here are two EP's from Japanese psychopunkers Masterpeace, whose split with Strike-Out I posted a little while back; lots of furious energy and balls out screaming here.






CHASE THE IDEAL MYSELF & WORLD IS ONE

Hightechnology Suicide : Screaming Bodhisattva Drug Junky

Completely over the top punk/hc/metal/industrial from Japan, this band is the precursor of, and very similar in sound to QP-Crazy. Both are fronted by the heavily made-up, Bush-wrestling, pyrotechnic-infatuated Crazy-SKB(sukebe meaning horny in Japanese) and lyrical themes tend towards destruction, degeneracy, sex and death: fun stuff if you're not bothered by lack of restraint/taste. Screaming Bodhisattva Drug Junky was released in 1994.

SCREAMING BODHISATTVA DRUG JUNKY

Strikeout / Masterpeace : Futurism

Strikeout are aggressive, snotty, catchy and provided two of my favorite tracks off the Life Conception comp I posted a while back. Masterpeace play a fuzzy, raw psycho-rawkin punk/hardcore that reminds me of lots of Japanese stuff and goes down nicely.





FUTURISM

Ghoul : 1984-1989 / Tribute To Masami

Seminal 80's Japanese punk band, fronted by the one handed, raspy-voiced, fan-punching legend Masami, who passed on young(like many of his contemporaries) in the early 90's, apparently of liver failure brought on by excessive love of the drink.


1984-1989:
Part 1
Part 2

Masami's post-Ghoul but very similar sounding band, Sqwad:

In 2002, a two disk tribute to Masami was released, featuring a whole host of Japanese underground punk/hc bands. The title ,汚れなき豚友達へ, means something like 'to the pig-friends who are not filthy'. There's a bunch of good stuff on here, but Paintbox's cover of the title track is pretty much worth the d/l itself.




汚れなき豚友達へ

Motosierra : Life In Hell

Wild, degenerate drugged out rawk/punk from way down in Uruguay. Puts me in mind of bands like Turbonegro or the Dwarves: song titles like 'someone to fuck', 'cocaine and whiskey', 'drug me' and 'hijo de satan' should give you some idea of the lyrical content and approach. Fun stuff.

LIFE IN HELL