POISON ARTS

Tokyo, Japan

One of the original Tokyo Burning Spirits bands — Selfish Records legends whose guitarist Chelsea went on to define an entire hardcore subgenre with Death Side and Paintbox.

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About

Poison Arts started in 1982 under the name Poison, changing their name once the American glam band made that impossible to keep. They were among the first wave of Tokyo hardcore bands to fuse the raw aggression of early '80s punk with the melodic intensity and metallic edge that would later be codified as the Burning Spirits style. Vocalist Yoshihiro Hiraoka, guitarist Chelsea (Hiroyuki Kishida), guitarist Aki, bassist Minoru/Sakyo, and drummer Koji/Eiji built a sound that was tight, fast, and possessed of a desperate melodic fire that separated it from the more chaotic strains of Japanese hardcore. They released most of their essential material through Selfish Records — the self-titled flexi, the "Hot Rod" and "Doku" EPs, and the sought-after "Kick Rock" mini-LP (1988). Their third EP, "Mystery Temptation" (1986), came out on Extasy Records, the label run by Yoshiki of X Japan, which gives you a sense of how interconnected the Tokyo underground was at the time. They shared stages with Gastunk and were part of a scene that was producing some of the most intense hardcore on the planet. Chelsea left to form Death Side and later Paintbox, becoming arguably the single most important guitarist in Japanese hardcore history. Poison Arts' last documented live show was in 1994 at Shinjuku Antiknock. Chelsea died of heat stroke on August 17, 2007. The band released "Rising Sun" in 2008 as a tribute to him. Poison Arts' influence runs through every Burning Spirits band that followed — they were the spark before the fire.

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