Esperanza: Freedom and Equality 12"

Esperanza: Freedom and Equality 12” (Educación Cínica) Educación Cínica, Cromi from Ayucaba’s label, brings us the debut full-length from this long-running band from Hiroshima, Japan. We carried Esperanza’s debut 7” on Todo Destruido way back in 2014, so this one has been in the cooker for a long time! Since then Esperanza has also released records on Hardcore Survives and Pogo 77, but it’s only now that we get more than a brief taste of their music. It’s funny this landed at Sorry State around the same time as Raw Distractions’ debut full-length on La Vida Es Un Mus and a D.S.B. reissue on General Speech, because I hear a lot of similarities between those three bands, particularly vocally. The three vocalists have similar accents and timbres and a similar approach, encompassing both a throat-ripping bark and a triumphant shout that begs you to join in on the anthemic choruses. Also like both D.S.B. and Raw Distractions, Esperanza is a hardcore band with a guitarist who isn’t afraid of melody, working in cool little surfy, Dead Kennedys-esque licks (“Decay”) and melodic solos that recall the catchiest end of the UK82 spectrum (“Oppression”). There’s also something about Freedom and Equality that reminds me of Tàrrega 91’s brilliant album from last year, Ckaos Total. Perhaps it’s the way you can hear a clear influence from Discharge (particularly on the fifth track, “雨”), while at the same time Esperanza avoids the tendency toward density that colors so much d-beat punk, focusing on Discharge’s agitated rhythms and simple, driving riffs. As befitting their name—which means “hope” in Spanish—there’s something wonderfully earnest about Freedom and Equality, a quality the beautiful screen-printed packaging perfectly accentuates. It’s the kind of record that makes you feel proud to be a punk.