NINJA HATORRY

 

Full throttle metallic thrashcore from Jakarta.....there's not much analysis required here because 2021's Fase is more akin to a beating than a listening experience. Twenty three exercises in grind mania with a conscious eye towards Y2KThrash - shit sounds like fukkn magic to my ears. It's great from start to finish, but "Youth" into "Me & My Holiday" gives me exactly what I needed this morning. Sometimes, my friends.....faster really is better.

FASE

SPEEDKILL // BERBAHAYA

 

Ten minutes of churning, in your face thrash that....man, the shit just fukkn grooves. The first SPEEDKILL cut has serious NUNCHAKU vibes and settles into something akin to the first HAUNTED record, while the BERBAHAYA tracks are full throttle cruising grind/thrash. There's nothing fancy here - they get in, they destroy, they get out. Not sure what else you could possibly want. 

OPIUM PEMBUS MORAL CANDU NADA NERAKA

POWER OF IDEA

 

How the fukk does this band still get overlooked?! Yellow Thrash is a brilliant piece of grinding Japanese thrash, and there's no logical reason why the band is not held in the highest regard....but you can still find the records in bargain bins. Heavy speed/thrash metal influence, which truly sets their brand of Japanese hardcore in a league if its own....this was the first full length, and to really appreciate "Fashionable White Rice" into "Brownrice" is to know that POWER OF IDEA were more than just a band with a bottomless barrel of riffs - these punks fucking meant it.

YELLOW THRASH

LEMOTS // DISPLOISUCK

 

Arguably two of the best and/or most random band names that have appeared on this blog in the last sixteen-plus years, DISPLOISUCK and LEMOTS team up for a raw and blistering fastcore assault more than worthy of your full attention. The way LEMOTS use a machine gun double snare hit to accent their verses is tough to describe even while I find myself getting sucked way deeper into their sound than any typical '00s fast/thrashcore should warrant.....which is exactly the point: they aren't typical.  TOTAL FURY-meets-CrasherCrust energy set to absolute maximum speed and punkest fidelity, it's truly something special and I hope that (the punk) TE visitors take note.
• Oh shit - there's another side!!! •
DISPLOISUCK are an entirely different animal that makes use of many of the same descriptors as their tapemates, but DISPLOISUCK hit more like an unhinged and out of tune street punk band who listened to the first two CASUALTIES records way too much and couldn't quite pull it off while they were wasted but compensated by trying harder. I don't know what else I can do to suck you in today....except that the physical tape is slightly fukkd and turns both recordings into a phaser a few times and it makes both of them even better in a way that feels like nostalgia even though you're likely hearing both for the first time. 
• You're welcome. •

PAST TOMORROW AND FUTURE

GRAVE DANCERS

 

This tape. It was a CD first, and it was one of the only things that made me want to use a CD player after we got back from Indonesia in 2008...but it was a tape too, and this is the tape. GRAVE DANCERS were to Jakarta what VIOLATOR were to Brasilia and MUNICIPAL WASTE were to RVA - relentless and innovative crossover thrash that takes influence from the obvious foundational stalwarts and makes something that sounds like....well, the shit sounds like GRAVE DANCERS. In a just world, Morbid Nation would be a sought after piece of history. 

MORBID NATION

THE IDIOTS

 

Imagine building a bridge between Dealing With It and WB2D but leaving DISCHARGE out of the picture entirely and focusing on '80s guitar solos instead. Now imagine that bridge crosses over Jakarta and there's an earthquake when the band is crossing and they never make it there....or back. There, weird analogical non-description complete; this shit fukkn rips. 

WHAT IS LEFT ... WE'RE STILL HERE

FOUR WAY THUNDER ATTAKK!!!

 

Strap in, motherfukkrs. Forty-one blasts of lo-fi fastcore/grind in just under thirty minutes, featuring four of Indonesia's fiercest unknowns. SESAK NAPAS, SCREWFACE, URBAN SOLDIER and STANDARGANDA each have their own take on the "genre/s," but really this is just an exhausting and in your face sonic assault. Blast beats, samples, irreverence, high pitched screams, jack-off riffs - hit the time machine and drop this collection in 2001 and watch the nerds weep. 

INDONESIAN IV WAY THUNDER ATTAKK!!

STATE IS DEAD

 

Three bands, and I am very glad I have not been hired to pick a favorite. RSG are raw crust-tinged fastcore/grind. SOCIAL DISTRUST are harsh, uncompromising and in your face crusty hardcore. AGGRESSOR have this bizarre clean guitar tone that almost sounds like it's sending a hearty fuck you to the rest of the band (and you) which is why that guitar is the thing that makes this band hum - shit is just unhinged and blown to fukk hardcore blasts. I'm glad that my job is just to share with you and not choose, because each of these three bands are straight up deadly. Thirty plus tracks filling up more that forty minutes.....listen to "No Seniority" by AGGRESSOR before you do anything else today. Please and thank you (and you're welcome)

STATE ID DEAD: 3 THRASHCORE SOLUTIONS

BOTTLED UP

 

Someone wanna tell me how I missed this? It's entirely possible that I am simply not cool, but this ultra cool and utterly devastating thing apparently happened under my nose in the late 2010s. That think was called BOTTLED UP. Shit sounds like PARLAMENTARISK SODOMI and NO DICE playing a bar in Menlo Park in 1998 and I am so fukkn here for it. Just wondering why I wasn't there for it, you know?

FARALLON

BONE SICKNESS

 

I remember hearing about BONE SICKNESS around the time of this demo. White hi-top thrashers dropping bombs in weirdo Olympia and sharing bills with freaks and art punk mutants. Listen to this absolute monstrosity and you'll see why those PNW punks were murmuring - I know there was more after this (and the 20 Buck Spin record is a must-have) but nothing touches the raw, primal energy of the first demo. Period. Raw sonic filth. 

BONE SICKNESS

CIVIL DISORDER

 

I'm not sure if you're prepared for this. You should listen anyway, but I strongly suggest strapping in before the opening title track on Berontak Dan Nalar kicks in because....it's a lot. Absolutely raging Indonesian crossover thrash of the highest order with speed picking guitars that'll make you think you're listening to MORBID ANGEL if you close your eyes tight enough. For context, this came out a year before Waste 'em All and I would argue CIVIL DISORDER match that record blow for blow from start to finish while taking a liberal nod in the direction of metallic Japanese hardcore/thrash. Sandpaper vocals, wildly erratic leads, EXODUS and Four Of A Kind-caliber high intensity moshes - listen to "Pembunuh Berdarah Dingin" and you will never be the same.

BERONTAK DAN NALAR

SICK BURN

 

From a 2010 Texas collection released in Poland to a 2019 California collection released in Japan, let's get ready to fukkn GO! with Sacramento's SICK BURN. They came from the ashes of RAD (really they just switched a guitarist and kept thrashing) and the Crew For Life kids recognized the greatness immediately, dumping SICK BURN on an unsuspecting Japanese audience a few years back. Their ability to be deadly serious about thrashing and content while clearly having a blast (while blasting) is exactly what made RAD so good, and SICK BURN carried the mindset into the new decade. I love this shit.

A GRAND EXCLAMATION OF GO!-ING

CONCUSSION

 

I'm not sure where this came from, but it's here now and I am grateful. Crust tinged thrash metal insanity in four fierce movements and I don't know what more I could possibly ask for. Enjoy your week, mutants. 

AGE OF INTOLERANCE

COMPLETED EXPOSITION

 

I wish I could describe the detonation that was COMPLETED EXPOSITION when they landed in California a lifetime ago (it was only something like ten years, but still). Absolutely unhinged sonic savagery that projected vibes that you just needed to soak up. It was no different when we shared a floor with them in Osaka on the last CFD tour, except that seeing them on their own turf might have been ever better (even though I knew what to expect). This band isn't a secret - 625 and RSR have released records and there are splits with BASTARD NOISE, WOJCZECH and EXTORTION among others, but this six minute detonation started it all twenty years ago. TO say that the shit "holds up" would be a criminal understatement.

PROGRESS AND HARMONY FOR MIND

THRASH UP MY ASS!

 

The compilation is such an important thing in the history of DIY punk and hardcore, especially in the pre-internet eras. Mixes passed from hand to hand were the key to countless young rockers discovering new bands. Regional comps put together by nerds and super fans were instrumental in putting cities, states and countries on the collective map. And sometimes...? Shit just ripped. And, with 2011's Thrash Up My Ass! as evidence, clearly shit still rips. Talk about your all-go-no-slow compilations, this plastic blue shell struggles to contain 60+ 60 second bursts of hardcore/fastcore fury. A few household names (SHORT FUSE, HJERTESTOP, REPROACH) and so damn many bands that were new to me - and notably brilliant sequencing (SUNPOWER into TENSE REACTION is so particularly choice), so you want to flip it and thrash it right up your ass. Again. And this is why these comps are (still) so important. 

THRASH UP MY ASS!

RIPPING THRASH

 

This is the shit, okay? Like...this is literally what it's all about. You have the people you love and the people you you hate and the choices you choose and the decisions you make...and you have collections of essential hardcore punk music made by people you don't know. Those collections somehow help you navigate all of the other shit - it doesn't make any sense, but that's literally what it's all about. Not sure who first came to this realization (hint: it wasn't me), but that shit resonates. I'm not going to blow a lot of words talking about this tape - it fukkn rules from start to finish and you should listen to this shit and study this shit. I will spend a few words mentioning the essential (QUOD MASSACRE, R.I.P., SUBTERRANEAN KIDS, WRETCHED) and the necessary (RADIKAL HC, TRANSGRESSOR, DEBAUCHERY, L'ODI SOCIAL and basically everything else on the damn tape), and I will once again mention how crucial mix tapes are. How crucial mix tapes have been. How crucial mix tapes will always be. The first version was probably from the late '80s, then the Social Napalm kids reissued it in the 2000s - which means the reissue is basically as old now as the original was when it was reissued. That shit is a trip...and this is the shit. Okay?

RIPPING THRASH: THE TAPE

V.V.M.

 

I swear I barely had time to blink before Alex and Bruno from THESE BASTARDS were cooking again. V.V.M. hit the ground running (fast) with six minutes of start/stop mania driven by Bruno's fuzzed out rumble and Alex's unmistakably outsider riffs (and delivery). Check their recent show in Sacramento and you'll understand why I am eager to see these maniacs in the flesh....

V.V.M.

DART

 

A few months ago my dude Spencer came back from a trip to Austria with a stack of heat from No Fuss Tapes and, in true TE better-late-than-never fashion, I've been digging through these jams hard lately. And these jams are on fire. For all of the blunt force object we heard in yesterday's GG ALIEN tape (also on No Fuss), Finland's DART are like a spear through the skull. I never knew I needed a through line to connect SPAZM 151 and ANNIHILATION TIME but I fukkn swear it arrived in Spencer's carryon luggage last fall - just an absolute no bullshit screamer from start to Finnish. See what I did there?

DART

FASTGAME

 

It seems like every time I revisit turn of the century fastcore I miss the era more. Still not totally sure if I miss the bands and the scene more than I miss the fact that I wasn't old and decrepit (I'm joking - it's definitely the bands...and the freedom to go see all of them). FASTGAME exemplifies the absolute explosion of the scene in what seemed like "far corners" of the world to tunnel vision North American punks - while we were singing along with nine of our closest friends in Rapid City, South Dakota these kids were covering our songs to throngs of rabid thrashers who knew every word. It was a different time...and while it was impossible to be everywhere at once, it's nice to look back into the time machine and see what you missed the first time. Shit flies by, y'all - soak up as much as you can becauser you don't get it back.

SOME ULTRA RARE STUDIO STUFFS THE BAND NEVER MADE PLAUS AN INSANE LIVE SET RECORDED IN A PLACE WHERE HARDCORE EXISTS! 

VEHEMENCE

 

Hard to believe that VEHEMENCE dropped this fukkn bomb and then just vanished, but this demo from 1992 seems to be all that there is. Their sound draws blatantly from the classics, but this thrash is raw and demented with tracks like "s'Raw Rats" making it clear that they weren't trying to cook with anyone else's recipe. Just five songs, wrapping with the almost eight minute "Impositioned Propriety" that ends the tape with a face melting solo and a mosh stomp so perfect that....well, I just can't believe that there wasn't more after this. 

GOOD SHOT! GANG MEMBER DIES...