The third album by FIGHT IT OUT has thirteen songs and lasts fourteen minutes. If you want to understand the band, that statistic will do.
Yokohama, 2002
FIGHT IT OUT formed in Yokohama in 2002. The original plan was to play old-school youth crew hardcore: fast, positive, straightforward.
It did not stay that way. As the members’ tastes changed, the music took in crust, grindcore and powerviolence, the short, violent style that swings between very fast bursts and slow, heavy parts. Descriptions of the band stress that contrast in tempo.
What it has refused to become is a metal band. The band insists on the term hardcore punk, and has said that hardcore punk gives you something you can only get from hardcore punk.
The Records
The second album, Talk Shit And Hope, came out in 2011. The third, MOST HATED, followed on 18 February 2017 on the label BOWL HEAD inc. That is the fourteen-minute one. The lineup at the time was YANG on vocals, JUNYA and OKB on guitar, KOHEI on bass and UEDA on drums.
The same year the band shared a split seven-inch with the band SAIGAN TERROR.
Six years later came the EP SKINHEAD GRIND, released on 3 November 2023. The song “Confusing” was put out ahead of it that October.
The Shows
The band’s reputation was made on stage. Its shows are known for the members going into the crowd and for the crowd answering back. In a style where records are over in a quarter of an hour, the live set is the main event.
FIGHT IT OUT has also played abroad, with a tour of Sweden.
Why It Matters
Japan has a long history of very fast hardcore, from the 1980s onward. FIGHT IT OUT is one of the bands that has carried it for the last two decades, without softening it and without turning it into metal.
Start with MOST HATED. You will have time to play it twice.
