Tokyo Lungs: Soul Music – album review

Tokyo Lungs: Soul Music

(Kibou/Amok)

LP | DL

Out Now

A short sharp shock of an LP from East Anglian project hardcore band Tokyo Lungs borrows heavily from extreme Japanese and US Hardcore bands reckons Nathan Brown.

Tokyo Lungs is half of East Anglian hardcore band Domestics – James Domestic and Simon Battery. Consequently, there is a distinct similarity to what The Domestics do. It’s bashy, shouty, sharp and stabby. 24 songs zoom past in 20 minutes. Only 5 hit the minute mark.  And they’ve got a song about lockdown. Very now.

The lyric sheet is all typewriter font in the style of an 80’s record and the cover art is loaded with Japanese imagery. Lyrically there’s a fair amount of personal introspection and exorcising of demons with some externally projected hatred of bigots, including the ones found in the punk scene.

Think classic Japanese hardcore like Systematic Death and Lipcream crossed with Ripcord’s Defiance of Power album. The maniac shouting emulates the likes of Negative Approach as well as the aforementioned Japanese bands. There are also some cheeky little guitar tricks that keep it interesting. It’s wonderful hardcore by numbers. While for some there is only so much of this stuff that you need, for the diehards this will be another “must-have” shouty hardcore record.

Get it from Kibou Records:

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Words by Nathan Brown. Check out his Louder Than War Author Archive.