Zouo ‎– The Final Agony (1984)

December 10th 2013 – More excellent Japcore

Zouo ‎– The Final Agony

AA Records – AA 002 – 1984 – 7″

This Japanese hardcore gang only made one record, but what a record. I’m not fully updated on the early Japanese hardcore bands so I got some help from my friend Patrick who forwarded the following info:

Singer Katsunori “Cherry” Nishida learned about punk through bands like the Clash and UK Subs. Eventually he was hit by Discharge which changed everything for him. Before this band few of the members previously played in a band called Memai (which translates in English to -Dizzy) they had one demo which is raw hardcore. It was not officially released but mp3:s are circulating. After Zouo , Cherry and some other members formed the band Danes Macabre who put out a few records ,the first EP. It’s really good dark hardcore not unlike Zouo. At one point Cherry moved to the U.S. for a while and ended up in Pittsburgh hanging out with the band Half Life and sang on some live gigs with them , no recordings of that though. Cherry is now in a hardcore band with weird eerie keyboards, the band consists of old Japanese hardcore punks who played in other great bands, they are possible called S.H.I. (Struggle Harsh Immortals), based in Osaka.

♬ 4 Song EP (MP3 320 kbps). Songs: Sons Of Satan / Making Love With Devil / No Power / Bloody Master.

Click on the images to expand them to higher resolution. The rips and images are from my record.

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2 comments

From facebook (I liked this comment so I added it here as well) Not their “own” record so to say, but don’t forget about the tracks on Hardcore Unlawful Assembly LP. Also I don’t think the tracks of Memai floating around are a demo, but rather 3 live tracks from a tokyo gig. Unless another Memai recording has popped up that I don’t know about which is highly possible. The current band of Cherry is called S.H.I. and stands for “Struggling Harsh Immortals” and has Cherry on vocals, guitarists from Danse Macabre and Nashi, Keigo who drummed in G-Zet, and was also a later member of The Stalin, Aki from Offmask 00 doing samples, and Shla from Gewalt doing theramin.

Thank you very much for info about ZOUO!!!