KURO "Complete Hardcore Damnation" LP

KURO "Complete Hardcore Damnation" LP

Legendary Japanese noise punk. A top Dropdead recommendation.

Black vinyl in heavy board jacket.
Euro Import.

Kuro. Their discography has been the subject of many a work of fiction (ie, dealer lists), and other than GISM, they’ve been bootlegged more than any other Japanese band. Nevertheless, their first flexi, limited to 1000 copies, is, as violent noisy hardcore goes, perfect. Yes, it’s live. No, the songs don’t have titles listed (though they do on later reissue CDs). And yes, that’s the sound of men, women, and children as they cry and scream in pain. Or, men, women, and children as they flee from the open in search of safety. Or, men, women, and children groaning in agony from the intolerable pain of their burns. Overall, their sound was more influenced by Motörhead than Disorder, and on the definitive “Who the Helpless” 8", one of the sharpest and clearest hardcore recordings ever, Kuro mix “HNSNSN” sweeping riffage with over-the-top distorted vocals with edges like a sawblade (due to the pellucid recording quality, each tooth becomes tangible). Confuse and Kuro shared a label, Blue Jug—run by a general, rather than specifically punk, music magazine—and both hailed from Fukuoka in Southern Japan, so it strikes me as notable that Kuro’s noise-core was qualitatively different from Confuse’s. The difference may cause some maniacs to question my inclusion of Kuro’s flexi on this list of noise-core records, especially when the red flexi I mentioned is more lo-fi, but I don’t think there is any better way to classify this record. And what it shares with the other records on the list, especially “Spending Loud Night,” is the way it took an influence from already-extreme bands and refashioned it into something new and even more extreme. In this case, noisiness is inextricable from that extremity, from its otherworldliness. Shit-fi doesn’t simply mean lo-fi or primitive (well, sometimes it does), it also encompasses a “Je ne sais quoi” that adds character to the music. I can only hazard a guess that because these bands hailed from an insignificant place, far from Tokyo or even Osaka, where Japanese hardcore was notoriously developing, they felt a compulsion to set themselves apart, attract attention, and make a name for themselves as doing something worthwhile and remarkable—to add that character to the music. There is also the shit-fi truism, as exemplified by Neos, Terveet Kädet, Shaggs, etc., that bands from locales far outside the mainstream’s (or mainstream underground’s) attention often manage to create music more interesting, more deranged, and more extreme than what is going on in the big cities, where the hope or possibility of “making it,” on however minor a scale, distorts priorities. Whatever Kuro’s motivations, these nutjobs certainly succeeded at creating music of enduring appeal, both in the high-speed noisy explosion of the first flexi and in the rockin’ yet menacing distortion of the 8".

Tracklist

A1 Damnation
A2 Anarchism & Destroy
A3 I Love You
A4 Nife Will Not Open Because Of Rust
A5 Contol
B1 How Long Do You Give Me
B2 We D'ont Care
B3 Merciless Game
B4 Kill The Ruler