BAREBONES
Tokyo three-piece punk 'n' roll built on Motorhead DNA and zero patience for subtlety.
About
BAREBONES is a Tokyo-based three-piece that has been grinding out loud, punkish rock 'n' roll since 1994. The band -- Tatsuya Goto on bass and vocals, Syujiro Hase on guitar, and Yoshihisa Abe on drums -- plays a style best described as what happens when Motorhead's bastard children grow up in Shinjuku: driving eighth-note rhythms, relentless percussion, and guitar work that swings between raw punk attack and greasy hard rock swagger. They are tagged variously as hardcore punk, stoner rock, and punk 'n' roll, but the truth is they just play loud rock music with zero pretension. Their discography is lean by design. A split EP with Boris in 1996 was one of the earliest entries in both bands' catalogs. The debut full-length "Ground" came in 2001, followed by "Back in Your Black" in 2007. Then a fifteen-year gap before their third album "ZERO" landed in November 2022 on Break the Records -- thirteen tracks of high-octane, Lemmy-approved fury that proved the hiatus hadn't dulled a thing. BAREBONES operate in that zone where simplicity is a weapon, not a limitation. The music never wavers, the bass and drums lock in tight, and the guitar tears through whatever space is left. Three people, maximum volume, no apologies.