EN / You can put on a show, dress up, start a band, upload your music online, network with the right people, and fuel your own ambition to be recognized within a system of elites and influencers that coexists with punk. There’s also another path, and that is to do it from the heart. The second path is that of Esperanza, a band that has been supporting and sustaining the Hiroshima scene for 13 years and is only now releasing its first 12″ vinyl. They are direct descendants of the generation that saw the world burn and had to rebuild from scratch. “Esperanza” ("hope" in Spanish) is a word that few people understand, and it carries more weight in their homeland than elsewhere. Hope is the only possibility—almost a biological one—to move forward after being a primary factor in one of the greatest injustices in the history of our planet. Less pleasant feelings like anger, frustration, and decay also coexist in their songs.

Even if you don’t understand Japanese, you can really feel the vibe when you listen to their songs. While the band has a classic Japanese sound with a strong UK82 influence, what stands out most about Esperanza is their honesty and their explicit belief in the music they make. I had the chance to visit Hiroshima this year, and seeing a band like that live was like recharging a mind that no longer gets easily surprised after so many years of going to concerts. The humanity and humility of this band are extremely hard to find in punk these days, and that’s why, with great respect, I’m presenting my first vinyl release today in collaboration with my dear friend Metadona.

This edition was printed entirely using screen printing, thanks to the help of my team, Artes Oscuras (that is, Ospi, Oski, and yours truly). It includes a 3-color cover, a 60×30 cm poster, and the first copies purchased directly through the store or Bandcamp will come with a promotional poster, also screen-printed, which was posted around Barcelona to announce the release.

If we define “dbeat” as everything that came after Discharge but consider Discharge to be a hardcore punk band—with songs that do vary from one another and albums that do create a sense of dynamics—the vocals on *Freedom and Equality* would immediately bring Discharge to mind, but with a vocal timbre very typical of Japanese hardcore. I imagine it might be genetic or simply the sound of the language, which, combined with riffs mixed with tasteful embellishments (something rare these days) and a steady, GBH-style UK82 drumming, results in a performance of the most classic hardcore with a rawness that can only be achieved in Japan. Neither better nor worse than others, but something that can only be achieved there. Perhaps I could place this band within the path of motorized dbeat pioneered by Inepsy. Furthermore, the band is imbued with an admirable political commitment that falls neither into defeatism nor into the rhetoric of a false peace we will never achieve. It is an honest, internal politics that does not seek to impose dogma on anyone, but simply to move forward without betraying itself.

Cromi - Educación Cínica

Our take: Educación Cínica, Cromi from Ayucaba’s label, brings us the debut full-length from this long-running band from Hiroshima, Japan. We carried Esperanza’s debut 7” on Todo Destruido way back in 2014, so this one has been in the cooker for a long time! Since then Esperanza has also released records on Hardcore Survives and Pogo 77, but it’s only now that we get more than a brief taste of their music. It’s funny this landed at Sorry State around the same time as Raw Distractions’ debut full-length on La Vida Es Un Mus and a D.S.B. reissue on General Speech, because I hear a lot of similarities between those three bands, particularly vocally. The three vocalists have similar accents and timbres and a similar approach, encompassing both a throat-ripping bark and a triumphant shout that begs you to join in on the anthemic choruses. Also like both D.S.B. and Raw Distractions, Esperanza is a hardcore band with a guitarist who isn’t afraid of melody, working in cool little surfy, Dead Kennedys-esque licks (“Decay”) and melodic solos that recall the catchiest end of the UK82 spectrum (“Oppression”). There’s also something about Freedom and Equality that reminds me of Tàrrega 91’s brilliant album from last year, Ckaos Total. Perhaps it’s the way you can hear a clear influence from Discharge (particularly on the fifth track, “雨”), while at the same time Esperanza avoids the tendency toward density that colors so much d-beat punk, focusing on Discharge’s agitated rhythms and simple, driving riffs. As befitting their name—which means “hope” in Spanish—there’s something wonderfully earnest about Freedom and Equality, a quality the beautiful screen-printed packaging perfectly accentuates. It’s the kind of record that makes you feel proud to be a punk.