SLEEPERS

I should make it clear that self titled SLEEPERS disc is genuinely one of the greatest unheralded Japanese punk releases, and that "テントセン" is on a very short list of my favorite songs of all time, so anything I say about this 1999 demo is transparently biased. SLEEPERS was a combination of THE GAIA guitarist and HELLCHILD's rhythm section (technically it was their original drummer and their final bass player, but their respective tenures did overlap, and I'm splitting hairs...), which helps explain the collision of sounds even though it would be impossible to predict that it would work this well. Three of the four songs here appear on the aforementioned full length disc in a much more polished form ("No Weep," the cut exclusive to this demo, is unsurprisingly brilliant) so there's a "completist only" argument to be made here - you would lose that argument but you could surely make it. This is an indispensable blast of metallic hardcore fury and addictive melodies, Yumirin's guitar solos are wild and unhinged (hell, not just the solos), and the double bass bursts in "Endless Fall" should be legendary and not relegated to bargain bins and nerds-only discussions.  All praise the internet for uncovering a copy of this tape for me, it was well worth the postage. 

SLEEPERS