EP REVIEW: Demo ’23 – Negative Sun
When it comes music like grindcore and hardcore especially, Japan has a really underrated scene. The small but rabid scene has not only produced some excellent music over the last few decades, but also sees those involved in the underground approaching their love for this kind of music with a single-mindedness and passion that’s very rare, even amongst diehard music fans, whether they are creating their own music or just going to shows. NEGATIVE SUN, one of this scene’s newest bands, formed in 2022 and feature members of underground bands like TEAR DA CLUB UP and BELMADIGULA, and they’ve already begun to make waves with their live shows. Their first demo, although extremely short, packs a significant punch, and serves as a raw and impressive introduction to this band and their music.
G.I.M.P. starts things off with a coarse, rabid slab of intense grind with shrieking vocals, blistering, lean guitar work and ferocious, authoritative drumming which all create a powerful and incredibly tight sound right off the bat, with the rawer production quality not being able to hide the musicianship on display here. The feedback that this song ends on seamlessly bleeds into TV Dinner, a much meatier, more rhythmic affair with subtle discordance and sludgy bass hooks carrying forward the death metal influence that was present in the previous song before launching into a brief, belligerent whirlwind of hardcore, abruptly shifting from a ponderous, crawling pace into an unflinchingly fast and chaotic maelstrom of aggressive riffs, punishing percussion and abrasive vocals.
The EP closes with a cover of LIGHTNING BOLT‘s Dracula Mountain, a song with hard, punk-inflected drums, rumbling bass, unhinged vocals and a much more melodic guitar playing style, departing significantly from the cacophonous, feral approach of the preceding two tracks, but retaining the grating, noisy deliveries and murky mix. It’s a streamlined, energetic rendition of the song that captures the essence of the track’s noise rock roots whilst adding a distinct grindcore twist to it, cramming a literal five minutes worth of music into less than half of that time.
It’s very hard to full encapsulate your sound in just three songs, especially ones as short as these, but with this demo NEGATIVE SUN have managed to set the tone for whatever their musical future holds. From the razor sharp death metal and powerviolence stylings of G.I.M.P to the swampier, fuzzy and frenetic presence of TV Dinner, the record manages to cover a lot of ground musically, introducing more interesting ideas into its approximately five-minute running time than many bands accomplish on full albums. Even the cover of Dracula Mountain manages to add the band’s own distinct flavour, whilst simultaneously showing listeners that they aren’t trapped in the standard grindcore bubble and are drawing influence from outside of the genre. At just over four minutes long, it’s almost incredibly fleeting, even by the standards of most grindcore EPs, but it nonetheless grabs the listener’s attention in this very short space of time.
Rating: 8/10
Demo ’23 is set for release on December 30th via Gerpfast Records.
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