ACUTE were one of those bands that feel like they shouldn’t even exist outside of a photocopied zine or a tape traded through five hands. Mid-80s, cold Hokkaido nights, everything recorded like the equipment was held together with duct tape and anger. That’s the charm. That’s the whole point.
Their tracks on “Nothing Action, Nothing Have” hit like a brick — raw Sapporo pulse, that northern distortion that always sounds a bit hungrier, a bit more cornered. Early ACUTE leans into that blown-out UK-82 chaos: Disorder through a cracked amp, sped up because winter’s coming and nobody has time to slow down. Later stuff? Pure Japanese thrash attack. They get faster, tighter, meaner. Like they figured out exactly what they wanted to scream and just kept sharpening the knife.
What I love about them is the bluntness. Anti-war, anti-authority, anti-fake-anything. No cryptic poetry, no layers to decode — just “here’s what’s wrong, here’s how it feels, now hold on while we hit the accelerator.” You look at their flyers and it’s the same vibe: handmade fury, black marker on grey paper, photocopied into oblivion.
The FOAD reissue (“Who Wants War”) basically preserves everything: studio takes, rehearsals, that unhinged Bessie Hall live set where the crowd sounds like they’re vibrating. It’s all cracked edges and speed and sincerity. A time capsule from a scene that didn’t care about legacy — they cared about getting the sound out of their systems before the cops or adulthood or winter shut them up.
Put it on late at night. Volume stupidly high. Let it sound like it’s tearing through the walls a bit. That’s how is supposed to be— not curated, not preserved, just alive and loud and gone again.
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