How's this for a blanket statement: Bastard's "Wind of pain" is the finest hardcore record ever released.

As far as recorded efforts go, this Tokyo outfit's sole 12" release represents the perfection of the hardcore punk genre. The music is unbelievably powerful thrash of the highest order, a megaton-force battering ram that races along at optimum speed-- fast as hell but with groove and dynamics intact and never degenerating into one-dimensional "grindcore" self-parody-- and the eight songs are well-written, distinctive and catchy despite their unforgiving brutality.

Koba's drumming is flawless, Zigyaku's guitar sound thick yet razor sharp, Tokurow's vocals ("choking and noise", read the credits) are at once anguished and emotive yet as angry and gruff as you could expect-- and the superb production brings everything out front, maximizing the hair-raising onslaught without sacrificing an ounce of rawness or distortion. The record is a monumental amalgamation of "Victim in pain"-era Agnostic Front, "Hear nothing..."-era Discharge (especially in the frantic, paint-peeling leads) and the intensity of prime Japanese hardcore of the old school (ie Gauze, Gudon, Lip Cream and Systematic Death). While essentially devoid of melody or originality, "Wind of pain" easily rises above genericism not through formal innovation but by virtue of its sheer overwhelming violence. From the minute-long burst of desperate, go-for-the-throat velocity that is "Dear cops" through the thunderous, impassioned crunch and and curiously melancholic surge of the climactic "Truth", this is as powerful a rock music as has yet been recorded, and that includes Slayer's "Reign in blood" LP.

A CD discography ("No hope in here") was released by the band in the late '90's, compiling the earlier, and less spectacular, "Controlled in the flame" EP, the 12", their sole compilation appearance and one unreleased track.

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