Endon

Endon, consisting of vocalist Taichi Nagura, guitarist Koki Miyabe, drummer Shin Yokota, and noisemakers Taro Aiko and Etsuo Nagura, debuted as a noise-avantgarde ensemble on the four-song EP Acme Apathy Amok (2011): the ten-minute Dualduel toys with samples of grunting pigs, then unleashes a carpet bombing of guitar distortions, buries both in orgasmic drumming and chopped-up vocals, and dissolves it all in an ultrasonic blender; the devastating maelstrom of God Of Shoplifting is simple too much of everything (distortions, screams, drumming, electronics) and that may be their goal; and The Spasm Of Confession goes even further with a terrifying seismic charge like early Red Crayola playing Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music at double speed.

Endon delivered an ultra-violent mix of punk-rock, grindcore and white noise on MAMA (Daymare, 2014). The seven-minute Etude For Lynching By Family consists in everybody hysterically producing the harshest possible noise on their respective instruments and voices. "Songs" that are as torrential and incendiary as Parricide Agent Service and especially the hyper-dramatic Just Like Everybody feel like they last ten minutes when in fact they only last three minutes; such as the emotional overload. A 15-minute version of Acme Apathy Amok (that was just one minute long on the EP) sinks after two minutes into an industrial nightmare of nasty jarring ear-splitting mechanical noise which turns into an extraterrestrial bacchanal, an annihilating journey to the center of an exploding supernova. If the seven-minute WIWTWM is a bit too confused and magniloquent even by their standards of extreme tension, there is enough to torment even the toughest "metal head".

The EPs Bodies (2014) and Bodies II (2014) contain remixes.

Endon perfected that method in Through the Mirror (Daymare, 2017), that is characterized by a very articulate use of noise, an album that has the power of Wagner's operas without the pomp and the bombast. The instrumental overture Nerve Rain lays relentless distortion over jungle tom-tom. Your Ghost Is Dead adds a more dynamic, if equally frenzied, guitar that emits semi-melodies while growls turn into sobs. Likewise, a black metal-esque squall pervades Postsex. Born in Limbo, possibly the vicious zenith, begins like a deranged Cramps-ian voodoobilly except that it sounds like a bunch of people are being eaten alive by zombies. The ten-minute Perversion Til Death begins in a more claustrophobic than catastrophic tone, with a macabre mid-tempo rhythm and werewolf-esque howls, imploding like a giant rusty creaking clockwork that runs out of power, and then erupting with demonic shrieks and electronic miasmas Through the Mirror is a mini-suite, beginning rather lame but then surging in a desperate scream and, in the second half, riding at a breakneck gallop while an organ intones a gothic melody and the growling voice intones an anthemic refrain amid an increasing pandemonium. The nine-minute Torch Your House begins in a state of trance/suspense like a psychedelic raga, followed by a martial crescendo and panicked screams, heading into a tornado of distortions. This music is beyond visceral, like an atomic bomb is beyond a bomb.

Boy Meets Girl (Black Smoker, 2019) toned down that assembly chain of detonations, perhaps in search of a more sophisticated language of punk noise (a contradiction in terms). Hence the rhythm halfway between voodoobilly and disco-music of Love Amnesia, hence the tortured bluesy instrumental Red Shoes, hence the twelve-minute Doubts As a Source, an expressionist recital of sorts introduced by a combination of repetitive patterns and industrial cacophony, then delivered by panting vocals over ominous bass lines, and then undergoing a sequence of painful psychedelic-horror mutations. Boy Meets Girl lines up punishing distortion and panzer beat, and the screeching vocals intone some kind of demonic lullabye: their idea of a pop ditty. Their trademark catastrophic virulence is better on display in the punk-rock moments, like Heart Shaped Brain and especially in the vertigo-inducing Final Acting Out.

Etsuo Nagura died in May 2020.