Total Fury "Committed to the Core" 7"
[Busted Heads]
This is the European pressing of this EP from this raging Japanese hardcore act. The songs are fast, short blasts that definitely seem to be inspired by a lot of the earlier American hardcore/punk bands. I'm talking fast as fuck chord progressions with completely indecipherable vocal yells and some very fast vocal patterns... they just blast away and never stop. The entire 7" is over in a flash! "The Day" is the only track that actually slows down and takes longer to develop. It's an instrumental, but it happens to be my favorite track on the record. Most of the songs run together and sound very much alike. There's not a great deal of variety and it's not always that memorable, but I like the rugged sense of energy and the speed of their delivery. A completely raw recording emphasizes this, with lightly distorted vocals, etc. But even though the vocals and drums sort of dominate, you can actually hear some bass back in there. Visually this thing looks pretty nice. The cover is in full color and contains some overlapping abstract imagery. The front flap folds out to reveal a similar color panel that's tinted blue with all of the text reversed. Inside everything is black and white with a lot of blank space and a cool image of power lines next to the lyrics. The songs are so short that all of the lyrics to each track actually fit on one little line each! As far as the content, the band's English is understandably not the best, so it can be hard to decipher exactly what they're talking about, but generally the message seems positive. "Faraway countries, Different race, Different culture, That's a small matter, We are tied by the bonds of our friendship, We share our lot together, All this anger, All this action, Nobody controls, All this passion, Committed to the core." Their message may be of a lighter nature than the band name might suggest, but the phrase "total fury" certainly fits their musical approach well! (7/10)
Running time - 7:00 (approximately), Tracks: 10
[Notable tracks: Committed to the Core, The Day, Makeshift Way]
Busted Heads - http://www.bustedheads.com

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