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The brawls, the teeth smashed against the asphalt, the bruised lips, the shortness of breath, the night always closing in, the flashing lights, the distant rowhouses, dark, like immense barracks. The black, soaked fields, and the enormous, unstoppable factories, men as their fuel.
The Tuscan CCM (acronym for "Cheetah chrome motherfuckers") released this absolute landmark of Italian hardcore in 1986, recorded at Hot City Recordings in Indianapolis in 41 hours and produced by the Florentine Belfagor Records. The cover is a splendid yet hallucinatory drawing played entirely on violet tones by Wiston Smith, the famous and brilliant graphic designer of the Dead Kennedys.
But let's get to the album. CCM's songs are full of fury and despair but never chaotic; on the contrary, the technique of the group is excellent, ensuring that the sounds are sharp and deeply felt, extremely so. Both in the faster parts and the more structured ones, CCM delivers a tainted atmosphere, charged with tension. Antonio's guitar becomes searing in many passages, a drill that supports Syd's extraordinary voice, one of the greatest singers of all Italian hc, a mortally wounded tiger among the sordid sores of any urban periphery, twisting and writhing before dying. It’s worth mentioning one song above all (though the other 9 are also extraordinary for intensity and anger): "Crushed by the wheels of industry," a chilling 6:57 piece where Syd raises hell and seems like a version of Darby Crash at the nth degree! In short, as mentioned above, a milestone of Italian hardcore punk which, I dare say, can stand above (at least a little) even "lo spirito continua" (ouch ouch ouch....).
Make it yours if you find it, maybe they've reprinted it on CD, download it, look in grandma’s old gramophone records....
p.s. on the backing vocals of "Crushed by the wheels of industry", there's Paul Mahern of the Zero Boys, who is also the sound engineer!!!!
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