Dustbox – The Awakening CD (Machine Records)

Dustbox are skatepunk trio from Tokyo, Japan which has been pretty much active since 1999. They’ve published eight full-length albums and couple of mini albums in their twenty-year lasting career, so The Awakening is a brand new offering by these guys. The band is also active as a live act, so it seems Dustbox are taking serious their musicianship. Dustbox are totally up to that old school skatepunk style with a lot of influences taken from standard punk rock and pop-punk music. Their music is full of melodic structures mostly played with a lot of fast tempos and a lot of hardcore punk riffs which has been mixed up with cool skatepunk riffs. Dustbox are playing on the safe card and their tunes are not so complex like music performed by the newer punk rock bands, so you’ll not require another pair of ears to enjoy in their recordings. However, this band is much more into melodies than bragging about new skills they’ve learned on their instruments, so you’ll be quite surprised how skatepunk music can sound so fresh in 2019. Vocals are performed in a high pitch style, singalongs are mostly sung as shout outs, so the presence of the hardcore punk elements is also hearable on the vocal parts of this recording. Dustbox simply knows how to deal with this particular music genre and they are undoubtfully doing this with a lot of love. The band also paid attention to the visual part of the record, so the cover artwork is also a good example of how skatepunk visuals can affect a whole listening experience. Weird artwork of a guy taking off the mask with the exact same face proves Dustbox are here for fun and pure love for punk rock music. The Awakening is available as a CD release through Machine Records, so do not hesitate to grab this fine piece of Japanese melodic punk rock history.