Monster Sakura
Hancur Tulang Belikat Demo CD-R
(Youthrustrecords)

Bought this at Sunday’s Never Built Ruins show, and it comes in an impressive off-white art-card CD envelope, with the artwork silk-screened in grey on the surface. Very beautiful indeed. Very tastefully done.

I’ve never heard of the band before, but the sleeve had me curious. I was hoping for a fully-matured and artful hardcore-punk band with playful but deep metaphors behind the 5 songs included.

What I get is a simplistic part-thrashy, part-moshy “fast-core” band. It is fun, screechy, fast and playful, as many other simplistic fast-core bands would be, but there’s nothing to differentiate Monster Sakura from millions of others doing the same thing over and over again, especially like the countless bands I heard from Indonesia.

The sound production is crisp and clear but the execution is pretty weak, especially parts of the the drums and guitar playing. Sections of the five songs, especially the more sedate intros and the breaks, sounded like bad street-punk rock to me, or maybe a baby hardcore band or something.

Great thrashing fast-core bands would always feature songs which would stand the test of “uniformity” of the scene, and that what keeps them apart from the pack. Hopefully Monster Sakura would find those songs very soon.

[audio:https://thericecookershop.com/mp3_wp_rc/mnstr_sak_siste.mp3]
Sistem Kamu Merosakkan by Monster Sakura

myspace.com/monstersakura | myspace.com/youthrustrecords

[rating:2.5/5]