Labels: La Vida Es Un Mus
Review by: Alex Deller
Twelve songs of Japanese hardcore that sounds like its radioactive ashes have been scattered across early 80s Europe (Italy via Sweden with a whiff of something Finnish like Riistetyt, maybe). To clarify matters and ensure things are egalitarian it’s allegedly sung in Esperanto, though I’m buggered if I can make any of it out and wouldn’t be able to understand it even if I could. Musically it’s sound as the proverbial pound, comprising some tearing, early-days hc with big ol’ fuzz-edged riffs hurled about and a genuine sense of mania. As well as the punked-up blitzkrieg, however, there’s this weird sonorous quality which occasionally appears and helps to separate Voĉo Protesta from the pack. It shines briefly during ‘Vivas Morte’ (possibly the standout track for me), for instance, providing a strange moment of heat mirage uncertainty before things bolt once more towards cider-drenched, phlegm-caked oblivion.