Worshipping japanese hardcore since the day before yesterday!
Shikabane originally released „Why Do You Live?“ as a CD in 2002, this here is the 2003 vinyl issue on Prank Records. The songs on this record continue the route of Ego And Desire: extremely dark, metallic, brutal yet melodic epics of up to 6 and a half minutes lenght, with slow passages and wild blast beats, plus lots of barking, choking and grunting. Great stuff!
“Hito no tameni ikiruka jibun no tameni ikiruka” (roughly “Do I live for others or do I live for myself?”) is Shikabane’s first 12″ from 1998. It still sounds a lot like their first 7″ or the split ep with Agathocles. Even though the sound is heavier and it’s got songs that last over two minutes (shock!), this 12″ is still thrashy, blast-beating hardcore and not yet the dark insanity of Ego And Desire or their “Why Do You Live” LP.
In my opinion Ego And Desire from 2000 is Shikabane’s masterpiece. It’s extremely dark, blackened crust, and a long way from their earlier chaotic thrash. It’s still full of tight blastbeats, grunting and screaming, and it sounds evil as the devil himself!
This is the first 7″ by 屍 (Shikabane/”Corpse”) from 1997. You’ll get 10 songs in little over 8 minutes of complete blastbeat and thrash madness! In the same year they also released a split-7″ with Agathocles, their first LP came out in 1998. Both are musically pretty similar to this e.p., but with the next release in the year 2000 – their great “Ego And Desire” e.p. – some black metal influences started creeping in and they turned a lot darker.
屍 – 人間に生まるること難し・・・
狂気の日本 