Labels: Phantom – UnUnDeux
Review by: Alex Deller
Japanische Kampfhörspiele have been going since 1998 and seem to have about 300 releases out, yet this is only the second time our paths have crossed. They play dense, tricksy, ultimately middling stuff that touches base with death metal, grind, thrash and hardcore but rarely stays in the same place long enough to be definitively pigeonholed as one thing or the other. Guitars chop, hack and gouge, occasionally throwing some fiddly moments in to keep you on your toes. The vocals are similarly variegated, sometimes going in for death grunts, at other points snarls, and still others strained hardcore yells. While they keep things heavy throughout ther’s a sense of playfulness to things that borders on the wacky, something that reminds me of early Fuck The Facts releases. Truth be told it doesn’t sit entirely comfortably with me, even less so when married to a sleeve that looks like Drowningman’s ‘Busy Signal At The Suicide Hotline’ gone porno. The lyric sheet, meanwhile, has a gross photo of plastic bottles and other assorted detritus washed up on a beach, so maybe it’s all some ultra-clever comment on ugly consumerism and how we’re a species of selfish finks. That’s something of a wild stab, though, since the whole thing’s in German and I can’t understand a word of it.