Acute – Murder Notice (SMRT Records)
It seems like punk’s fascination with Japanese bands has begun to wane a bit in recent years. This interest initially seemed like something of a holdover from the era before internet ubiquity, the time when well-kept secrets tended to stay that way. Japan’s relative geographical isolation (at least from punk hotbeds) caused its scene to develop somewhat in isolation.
Acute – Murder Notice (SMRT Records)
It seems like punk’s fascination with Japanese bands has begun to wane a bit in recent years. This interest initially seemed like something of a holdover from the era before internet ubiquity, the time when well-kept secrets tended to stay that way. Japan’s relative geographical isolation (at least from punk hotbeds) caused its scene to develop somewhat in isolation. This led to a distinct style that was at turns harsher and more accessible than much of the punk and hardcore coming out of other countries – despite the hyper-violent metallic tendencies of GISM, the rough clangor of The Comes, or the streamlined aggression of Death Side, all were underpinned with a level of songwriting ability that added a depth to their attack. It also ensured that only the most notable of bands gained much attention in other countries. When the internet was able to open the floodgates of the country’s fecund punk scene, it seemed like all a label had to do was slap a “Japanese thrash” tag on a particular record to ensure sales, turning the sort of regional variations that made early hardcore interesting into a marketing tool that foisted a lot of bullshit onto an eager public.
I offer that background simply because Acute is not one of the latter types of bands. Their debut release, Murder Notice, exists in the tradition of the best Japanese hardcore – a rapid blast of songs possessed by both the sort of insane energy that makes them sound perpetually on the verge of falling apart (though never quite cracking up) and a melodic sense that prevents them from coming off as simple two-dimensional thrash. The album commences with wall-of-sound raw pounding topped off with rapid-fire vocals that could easily come off like an above average Gauze tribute, until the chorus comes around and turns the whole thing on its head with a rough vocal melody that seems to come out of nowhere, almost sounding like a snottier, higher-pitched version of a young Blake Schwarzenbach. This juxtaposition of the manic and the melodic – with careening aggression segueing into catchy choruses and harmonized guitar leads (even incorporating a weird chanting sample on the last song) – continues throughout the rest of the album’s fifteen minute running time, never allowing the songs to fall into the trap of monotony.
Because of its combination of visceral intensity and accessible experimental tendencies, Murder Notice likely would have been a legendary album had it been released in decades past. As it stands, it will likely join the ranks of more recent Japanese punk albums – Demolition’s Mob Of Wolves, the second Assault LP – that never got their due. It may not tragically end up in dollar bins like some of those albums (a fairly limited pressing on a Swedish label doesn’t really encourage the same level of easy disposability, though it does reveal the positive side of technology’s impact on this type of music – punks of yore might consider it a minor miracle that a guy in Virginia could get a record by a Japanese band on a Swedish label distributed by some punks in California without much delay). However, Murder Notice may still fly under a good number of people’s radar, which is a damn shame, because it’s exactly the sort of bracing and intense, yet intelligent and challenging thing that made this sort of music compelling in the first place.
