I love Asian metal bands in general, but the ones coming from Japan are definitely my favorites. Japanese folks, when they do something, they like to put a spin on it that no other country in the word can, and this also applies to metal. The heavy bands from Japan are unique in their music and looks. Crazy bands like MAXIMUM THE HORMONE, CROSSFAITH or even BABYMETAL will have their own unique style that will separate them from bands from all over the world and even amongst themselves. Japanese metal tends to be really weird as well for our westernized taste, and I love it. The new highlight in the Japanese metal scene is the thrash metal band SATSURIKO ROBOT releasing their second album No Thrash Metal, No Life! I Love the title already. Let’s see what they got!

 We are hit by “Trash Never Die”, the first track, and they are absolutely correct, it never dies.  The energy, the drums, the screams, the speed, the riffs, are all there. The extra sauce is the vocals. Not guttural, but a raspy higher register and very throaty vocal. The second punch in the face is “Robot In The Pandemic”. With a great drum intro by  the very competent Yuuki Fujimoto the band goes full thrash until the middle of the tune when you hear a weird oooh, oooh in the background to suddenly change to a completely different tempo and melody. I would prefer the lack of the oooh backing vocals, but the rest of the tune is a banger. “Mad Thrasher” is the third tune and they do show their passion for the style not only on the title of the songs, but also in their music. Vocalist Kenichi Hayashi is again the stand out here. He’s got a unique kind of scream that I have seen in MAXIMUM THE HORMONE before, however, he takes it to the extreme and uses it in the entire song with some pitch variations. The “chorus” of this song is hilarious and something I never heard before.

 Hard to understand anything that they are singing which makes me believe that all the songs are in their native language despite the titles in English ( I may be wrong). We follow with “Satsuriko Robot ver.2 5.” with a more doom introduction as a prelude, we get back to thrash territory right after with the always excellent work from guitar player Hideaki Kaiho and the competent bass player Kazuya Okan. Riffs are spilled with no mercy and full of energy. “Carry On” is next and reminds me of the same song title of the speed power metal band ANGRA, but the output could not be more different. In this tune the vocalist uses a completely different approach and actually sings the song and you can hear his natural voice, and it is a good one. It could be used more in the other songs as well as a good mix with the crunchy vocals. We get close to the end with “Episode Zero” that starts more with a tribal vibe on the drums and the guitar riff. We slow the tempo on this one but we keep the heaviness. The vocalist seems to read my thoughts and mixes the crunchy vocals with melodic ones. A good tempo break on the album shows that thrash metal is not high speed all the time. They even add a traditional heavy metal style riff and drums for the guitar solo.

 The final song is “No Thrash Metal, No Life!” and I believe I can understand the beginning of the song and the chorus that are sung in english. Japanese bands tend to throw a few words in English in their composition. This is another neck breaker and an ode to the genre. Great energy. Good effort from the band. I like when bands try to surprise you with unexpected approaches to melody, riff and tempo. However, despite some traditional Japanese crazy inputs in their songs, I can safely say they are at heart, a good thrash metal band  with an open future. Is great to see new bands like SATSURIKO ROBOT and ERADIKATED keeping the trash metal style alive and coming from different countries from where the genre was created.