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Our take: While I don’t hear nearly as much talk about Japanese hardcore nowadays as I did a few years ago, there is a dedicated crew of folks keeping the sound alive, and few more more important than Kick Rock Records. While the label’s first two releases were by Japanese bands, for their third release they mine the cassette discography of Finland’s Vastusta. Don’t worry that Kick Rock has changed gears, though, because even though Vastusta is Finnish it would be easy to mistake them for a Japanese band because they sound basically exactly like Warhead. I have no doubt that the Finnish classics have influenced the band as well, and this is by no means a million miles away from the breakneck hardcore of bands like Terveet Kadet and Bastards, but particularly in the vocal department Vastusta remind me so much of Warhead it’s uncanny. The music, production, and songwriting are all perfectly executed and deliver maximum intensity at all times. So if you like that ultra-fast Japanese hardcore sound of bands like Warhead and Nightmare and you don’t particularly care whether the band is actually Japanese or not I can’t recommend this one highly enough.