Monday 4 February 2008

Review: The Hawks - Nippon Shugi Sha CD

The Hawks formed in 1995 and are from the Kansai area this is their second album and follow up to 2000's "Living on the edge" CD. The Hawks always sounded a bit like the Chiswick bands from the UK combined with Skrewdriver. This album has some more other influences, some songs remind me of 80's melodic hardcore from the USA. Anyway still very melodic and Skrewdriver like, they also included a Skrewdriver cover song "Patriot" sung in english. I have to say the less heavy melodic sound of the Hawks is very catchy and the songs stay in your head all the time. The Hawks together with Strong Style form the top of the Nationalist scene in Japan. Their early releases made me believe they were a more traditional skin band, compilations with non political bands like LRF etc. But i guess they fooled me. This CD is released by Jukeboxxx records. The artwork features a winged skull ( with japanese helmet ) holding a ribbon with the words "Samurai Spirit". The rest of the lay out has a kinda gangster feel to it. Listen to some samples on the Hawks myspace.

Hawks live video:

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