Worshipping japanese hardcore since the day before yesterday!
On this 7“ single from 1986 Gastunk felt like mixing their trademark, metallic hardcore punk with some stereotypical spaghetti western, wild west music tropes: acoustic guitars and these hoove-imitating, stomping drum shuffles included. Side A -Geronimo- is obviously a hymn to native american Goyaałé (aka Geronimo), while side B’s title may not quite be the, err, preferred nomenclature.
Wow, it’s been quite a while since I last posted a record by Gastunk. How did this happen? Was it because I had already posted everything I owned by that point? Well, yeah. Anyways, here is their 1986 12“ ep, with four tracks between power metal, hard rock, punk and hardcore. Watch out for songs longer than 6 ½ minutes, acoustic guitars, the sudden ending of an endless waltz, crooning vocals and dual leads!
„Dead Song“, Gastunk’s first LP from 1985, has the same strange-yet-great mixture of hardrock, heavy metal, punk and hardcore as the rest of their early releases. Since I‘ve already praised Gastunk’s greatness in my earlier posts…
If you‘re going to release a bootleg compilation LP of 7″es, why name it after one further ep (Gudon’s 卑下志望 7″) that you‘re not going to include? Anyway, this comp has Ghoul’s first and second 7″ in all their awesomeness. Just as high on the awesomeness scale is the Gastunk’s self titled 7″ from 1985. Although it’s not yet as hard-rockin‘ as Mr Gazime, it’s got melodic and metallic thrashers that surely made all these NWOBHM dudes swear off hairspray forever out of sheer envy. Last is Systematic Death’s „Flash Back“ 7″ from 1986 which definitely breaks the records in velocity, thrashing wildness and underproduction on this record.
In 1985 the great looking hardockers of Gastunk released their first LP „Dead Song“. In 1988 they re-recorded the LP’s title track for a flexi disk which came as a freebie with a music magazine. Dead Song is another hardrockin‘ epic of over 5 minutes complete with acoustic intro.
This compilation was originally released in 1986 with cover artwork featuring the Atomic Bomb Dome, but this here is the 1988 version on Nuclear Blast. Lipcream, Outo, Gauze and The Execute are featured with great thrash, Ghoul and Gastunk are more metallic. I especially love the tracks by Ghoul and Gauze.
Mr. Gazime (whoever that may be) from 1985 is Gastunk’s second 7″. It’s got a weird, yet very cool hard rock/power metal vibe to it, with great crooning vocals which sound like they could almost come from Mr. Frank Sinatra himself. Totally awesome!
The Hold Up Omnibus 8″ is a compilation of live recordings with Systematic Death, Ghoul, The Clay and Gastunk. The tracks by Systematic Death are all available as studio versions on different 7″es and compilations, as is one song by Ghoul. The Gastunk songs are (as far as I know) otherwise unreleased, just like all the songs by The Clay. Sadly the recording quality is mostly mediocre, but The Clay are absolutely great on this record. Really primitive, powerful stompers of straightforward political hardcore.