CCM

condition (record/cover): NM / EX-
Insert included.
Tuscan band CCM (an acronym for "Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers") released this absolute milestone of Italian hardcore in 1986, recorded at Hot City Recordings in Indianapolis in 41 hours and produced by Florence-based Belfagor Records. The cover is a splendid, hallucinatory design featuring all-purple hues by Winston Smith, the celebrated and brilliant graphic designer for the Dead Kennedys. CCM's songs are imbued with fury and desperation, but never chaotic. In fact, their technique is excellent, making the sounds sharp and tormented—extremely tormented. Both in their more intense and structured sections, CCM create a stale, tense atmosphere. Antonio's guitar is often lacerating, a drill that supports Syd's extraordinary voice, one of the greatest singers in all of Italian hardcore, a mortally wounded tiger among the sordid wounds of any metropolitan suburb, twisting and writhing before dying. One song is worth mentioning above all others (but the other nine are also extraordinary in their intensity and anger): "Crushed by the Wheels of Industry," a chilling 6:57 track where Syd unleashes hell and sounds like a Darby Crash version taken to the nth degree! In short, as mentioned above, a milestone in Italian hardcore punk.

Belfagor Records, named for the demon of inventiveness, provided an appropriate home for music this deliberately ominous. The Italian gothic scene remained smaller than its British counterpart but produced work of genuine intensity. This LP captures that moment when post-punk's experimental edge met rock's theatrical darkness.