Jouhou

This New Jersey grindcore trio existed from 1992 to 2001, writing and recording sporadically and touring mostly in Japan, where the majority of their audience was. Second studio album Jou Hou was originally released in 1997 in a limited vinyl run, but was reissued in 2004 after the band's demise. Jou Hou saw the band entering a critical phase in its development, shifting from straightforward grindcore into a more complex variation on the standards set forth by Napalm Death or G.I.S.M. Very few of the album's dozens of tracks reach past the one-minute mark, but even in their brevity, forceful blasts like "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" (named after a Philip K. Dick novel) are powerful examples of grindcore grandeur. The 2004 reissue expands the original set list with 12 additional tracks from split releases with Melt Banana and Plutocracy, as well as a live recording from a Tokyo gig.