Most of the weirdo hardcore that I'm infatuated with comes from the early days of American hardcore, with bands like Void, Die Kreuzen, Siege, and Deep Wound being among my all time favorites, but another crucial, experimental band that I love from that early hardcore era hailed from Italy, the Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers, taking their name from the legendary Dead Boys guitarist. With some of the most bestial hardcore vocals ever and some of the most offbeat hardcore from the early 80s, this band is a cult legend in hardcore circles and were the premier European counterpart to the most psychotic extremes of hardcore over here in the States. Unfortunately, their records are hard to find, and when they are, they usually cost a pretty penny. Cessofonya did release this collection of early seminal recordings from CCM though, which I've finally gotten for the store, and it's a must-hear for fans of extreme early HC. The disc collects the 400 Fascists and Furious Party 7"s as well as their tracks from the Permanent Scar 12" and some compilation tracks, pretty much covering their non-album output.

The first is the 400 Fascists 7" tracks that were released back in 1981. The songs are short blasts of ultra-noisy hardcore punk, fast primitive riffs and frantic bass guitar smashed through a wall of collapsing drums and white noise, radio static fuckery and feedback, an assault of damaged hardcore that closes with the weird angular punk of "Akool" that starts off almost like no wave but then transforms into speedy ultra-noisy thrash.

The Furious Party 7" from 1985 has much better production, but it's still raw, ragged trebly hardcore pain, pissed off and evil sounding hardcore punk, and it's here that you can see where the Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers were getting compared to both Black Flag and Die Kreuzen, their super fast hardcore laced with wailing guitar leads and the singer's awesome, malevolent growl, some plodding dirge and post-punk elements showing up, and the title track erupting into a ferocious ultracore blast that rivals Siege.

The Permanent Scar split with I Refuse It is also from 1985, and again combines furious superfast hardcore with violent anti-authoritarian anthems, tinny guitars and drums, crazed gargling vocals, a spoken word class-war intro, weird no wavey noisiness, and the awesome scumbag punk anthem " Envy (I'm a Mess)". That material is followed by the compilation tracks and this stuff is easily the most extreme on the whole disc. The three songs off of the Last White Christmas tape are INSANELY fast, and rivals the pure unhinged chaos of Siege, while blasting their 'core with sickening levels of distortion and white noise, the third song a nearly fourteen minute live jam that veers from herky-jerky noise dirge to spastic thrash to spoken word parts backed by tribal drumming and trippy guitar noise and ragged improvisation. More of this crazed, noise-damaged HC appears on the Senza Tregua comp tracks and the live version of "Friend Or Foe" from the We Can Do Whatever We Want compilation.

If you're into the psychotic nuclear-strength hardcore weirdness of bands like Void, United Mutation, Deep Wound, early Die Kreuzen and Siege, you have got to hear this stuff!