Originally issued by Selfish Records in 1986 and rereleased the following year on Nuclear Blast Records, A Farewell to Arms attempts to document a nation wide musical movement. In the West, most of these Japanese bands that contributed work to this compilation aren’t the biggest names in hardcore. That doesn’t mean that each group represented here has ceased to carry a huge cache around. No, this disc isn’t going to change your mind about the genre, but it lends some insight into how hardcore spread across the globe and has been funneled back into the States.
One of the bigger names on this compilation, Lip Cream approximates a spate of ’90s American stuff. And while those bands aren’t necessarily all well thought of today, these guys have maintained an international cult following. Find out why.
New Jersey is evoked over the course of Outo’s for tracks. Why? I dunno, but this is pretty thrashy. Melodies are still discernable, but only kinda. It’s interesting, though, that noise and feed back play as large a role in Outo’s music as punk and hardcore. And the classical music cop during the intro of “Like Cola” points to the band’s appreciation of all musics.
Contributing just two songs to the compilation here, Gastunk includes a bit of mid ‘80s spandex rock into its sound. The tempos are still all break neck and it’d probably be difficult to completely grasp what’s going on here even if Japanese was your first language. But the sporadic breakdowns work to make these efforts more palatable then they would be otherwise – some of that screeching guitar work could be left out, though.
These folks are probably the best known proponents of the style this compilation attempts to relate. In the West, it’s not uncommon to see some dirty punk kid with a Gauze patch on his back. And it’s easy to understand the draw. Most will take issue with this, but Gauze and a great many other bands seemed to have listened to the Exploited a lot and just made it faster. It’s music would be a bit more engaging, though, if I had any idea what was being said/sung/screamed.
The eight plus minutes that Ghoul takes up on A Farewell to Arms is as metal inflected as any other effort here. The pacing of each of the group’s two songs sets it apart from this particular cohort as well. But in that, the shifting genre tropes can be prefigured. By 1986 hardcore was already pretty deep into the process of being co-opted and turned into some tough guy thing. Ghoul isn’t that exactly, but close.
Perhaps the most poorly recorded tracks here, the Execute turn in a few efforts that equal the speed of anything before it. And regardless of whether or not this particular brand of J-hardcore is to you liking, the fact that the band worked up a seven minute track of thrash in the form of “Ghost Candle” is pretty impressive.
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