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As a child my mother told me not to play with incendiaries but I just loved the way things looked as they exploded and burned. All that searing heat and crackling destruction made me thirst for more, for bigger, for total annihilation. That is how KLONNS feels too. "Crow" is four chunks of aural dynamite come together to form an EP chock full of explosive Japanese HC in the vein of the greats like BASTARD, LIP CREAM or DEATH SIDE. Listen loudly and dance until it's only ashes left...
Our take: Crow is the latest EP from Japanese hardcore band Klonns, who have racked up an impressive discography full of EPs without a US release until now (though back in 2019, Sorry State imported some copies of a tape collecting their releases up to that point). I notice that Klonns often describe themselves as “blackened crust,” while Iron Lung’s description compares them to classic Japanese hardcore bands like Bastard and Lip Cream. While Klonns have the power and the grandiosity of those classic Japanese bands, their chaotic and noisy sound takes just as much from grittier crust and noise-punk bands from Confuse to D-Clone and Zyanose and beyond. The fuzziness of the production and the sinister vibes have an underground cult metal feel as well. These elements smashed together ends up sounding like Public Acid, another hardcore band who finds a delicate balance between their chaotic and bruising sides. All four tracks are rippers, but I’m taken with “Ghoul,” which finds a Warthog-style groove heavy enough to take down a cinderblock wall. Crow makes a nice pairing with the crushing Erupt 7” that also landed this week.
Our take: Crow is the latest EP from Japanese hardcore band Klonns, who have racked up an impressive discography full of EPs without a US release until now (though back in 2019, Sorry State imported some copies of a tape collecting their releases up to that point). I notice that Klonns often describe themselves as “blackened crust,” while Iron Lung’s description compares them to classic Japanese hardcore bands like Bastard and Lip Cream. While Klonns have the power and the grandiosity of those classic Japanese bands, their chaotic and noisy sound takes just as much from grittier crust and noise-punk bands from Confuse to D-Clone and Zyanose and beyond. The fuzziness of the production and the sinister vibes have an underground cult metal feel as well. These elements smashed together ends up sounding like Public Acid, another hardcore band who finds a delicate balance between their chaotic and bruising sides. All four tracks are rippers, but I’m taken with “Ghoul,” which finds a Warthog-style groove heavy enough to take down a cinderblock wall. Crow makes a nice pairing with the crushing Erupt 7” that also landed this week.