Butcher ABC: "North of Hell"

The heaviest gore groove known to man

Though North of Hell technically speaking is Japanese gore meistros Butcher ABC's first real album since their humble noisecore beginnings in 1994, it's not that their career has had a shortage of releases. If bands like General Surgery, Haemorrhage and early Carcass gets you hard, you're surely going to like this one!

Evil: "Rites of Evil"

Goat-headed pentagram and old English font; That's exactly how this band sounds

Japan's new prime Buddhist thrash metal trio Evil let lose with all the dirty ferocity that one can expect from a group signed to Nuclear War Now! Productions. If you're even a little familiar with the label, you should already have a pretty good idea of the type of lengths this band will go to in order to create that menaching thrash atmosphere.

Friendship: "I&II"

Hateful mires of liquid metal

Sentient Ruin Laboratories from Oakland, California, have never been a label to skimp on music's outcast misfits. Be it grindcore, extreme metal or noise, this indie label are true purveyors of extremity. SRL have just now compiled two EPs of absurdly crushing Japanese powerviolence into one single nuclear crucicle of raw disregard and abrasiveness with Friendship's I&II.

Flower Travellin Band: "Satori"

Cult heavy-psych from Japan

The mighty Saxon once asked "where were you in '79 when the dam began to burst", but let us turn back time a little further and leave self-referential question for some other time. Let us tune in to early 1971. In England, heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath had already released their second album, and Led Zeppelin was still gaining momentum through their first three albums. In the US, The 13th Floor Elevators and the first incarnation of Iron Butterfly had already come and gone, and so had the guitar legend Jimi Hendrix.

Anatomia: "Dead Bodies in the Morgue"

The gorefest that is Japanese death-doom beckons to those who live for death

To connoisseurs of gore-soaked Japanese metal, and aficionados of death-laden doom, Anatomia should already ring a bell. Since their debut album in 2005 - aptly named Dissected Humanity - the band has, together with the likes of Coffins and Grudge (both of whom also appeared on the 2007 split between the three bands), put Japan on the map with their endless offerings of the heaviest and filthiest death/doom metal.