Volume Two in this podcast series devoted to digging up punk and punk-derived music from Japan. This episode hops all over the nation and is a bit more stylistically eclectic in scope than Volume One. Bands from Hokkaido (Tranquilizer), Sendai (G-Spot), and Toyama (Z, Chaos C.H.) are represented, as well as the usual glut of folks from Tokyo and Osaka.

Abraham Cross, Slaver, and Disclose all feature straight-ahead, speedy numbers that are sure to make folks bop along. The standout oddball track is Ghoul’s gem “Jerusalem”, culled from an old Pusmort compilation (Pushead‘s old label which did a lot to bring Japanese hardcore and metal fare to U.S. collectors). It features a weird snoozer of a piano concerto which drops into a sludgy HC/metal number, followed up by questionable mega-riffage that brings to mind early D.C. bands like Kingface (not that Kingface was questionable, mind you…). It’s just a weird song– epic for its time.

Best song name probably goes to The Execute for “Inside of Human Outside of Human,” though Chaos C.H.’s “Boycott the Suck History” gives it a run for its money.

In all, Volume Two features 22 tracks and runs for 36 minutes and 27 seconds.

File: m4a
Feed: .rss feed for iTunes etc.

Volume One available here.

Track List:
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As a skater/punk kid in the upstate New York countryside during the ’80s, a big factor in educating my would-be musical taste was reading Thrasher when I could get my hands on a copy. (Note that this was in the last few years that Thrasher still devoted a lot of time to punk.)

There were a number of articles on Japanese thrash and hardcore bands, stuff that would only make it into the hands of affluent record collectors in NYC, not the hayseed outskirts of Albany. I was consuming a steady diet of early thrash, speed metal, crossover, and punk and hardcore cassettes.

Somewhere along the way, a friend gave me a cassette that had a few Lipcream songs on it, and this was the proof in the pudding — the ferocity of those songs outmatched a lot of American bands. They were stripped-down, forceful, and grinding. No solos, no over-the-top glammy vocals, just hardcore-by-the-numbers, but played with speed and acumen that really stood out.

Fast forward 20 years and the wonder that is the internet has unearthed a ton of rips of vinyl from those golden years where I missed out on everything. I’ve been listening to a lot of them lately and have compiled what will potentially be the first in a series of podcasts that capture the essence of Japanese crust-oriented punk, hardcore, d-beat, thrash, and assorted metal micro-genres.

Volume One is fairly pan-Japanese in scope.Iconoclast hail from Kanazawa, Hakuchi from Niigata, D.O.N.D.O.N., Lipcream, and Disprove from Tokyo, Effigy from Takamatsu, and Gudon from Hiroshima. This volume is fairly Gudon-heavy, as I just really like their music — aggressive, fast, growling hardcore played with nerd-like technical ability and recorded with detailed production.

File: mp3
Feed: .rss feed for iTunes etc.

Track List:
Continued »