Dutch noise rockers FINE CHINA SUPERBONE have unveiled their third official release, Hunk, on September 15, 2024. The album, a collaboration with Vollmer Industries (Italy), Sonatine Produzioni (Italy), Whosbrain Records (France), and Rat Run Records (UK), is available on vinyl, cassette, and digital formats. Recorded at Bear Bites Horse Studio in London with producer Wayne Adams, it channels the band’s signature abrasive, distorted sound while embracing a renewed creative energy. Caught up instantly, we sat down with the band to discuss each and every song and give you their recommended local bands worth a check.
Formed around 2000, FINE CHINA SUPERBONE built their reputation on chaotic noise rock / punk performances before transitioning to an instrumental four-piece after losing their vocalist. This shift allowed the band to explore greater sonic complexity, as evidenced in their 2010 release Make Machine through the legendary Narrominded label. However, by 2012, the band returned to their original three-piece format, reintroducing vocals and diving back into the raw, filthy noise/math rock for which they’re known.
Their 2019 album Plaguey marked a notable moment, released by Dutch label Geertruida and recorded at the same London studio. Now, with Hunk, FINE CHINA SUPERBONE takes another leap forward, blending jagged riffs, dissonant textures, and biting commentary into a cohesive, provocative work, channeling vibes from Shellac, through Fugazi, to Primus.
The band’s current lineup includes Wiebe (guitar, vocals), Joeri (bass), and Manfred (drums). The album title Hunk evolved from a humorous series of song names, beginning with a track nicknamed “Henk.” This satirical tone extends to the album artwork, created by Serbian artist Iva Spasojević (aka EKS Graphics), which lampoons macho stereotypes.
The artwork’s caricatured hyper-masculine figure reflects the band’s sardonic approach to modern culture. As the band explains, the “hunk” is not an aspirational figure but a critique of “macho-attitude” embedded in the distorted soundscapes.
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FINE CHINA SUPERBONE thrives in a vibrant Dutch noise scene. Their recent release party featured a lineup of innovative local acts, and the band gave us a quick rundown of top bands to check out, if you don;t know them already.
The Domains: this is one of Manfred’s other bands. It consists of him and Kevin from Trumans Water. It’s noisy and the songs start out as improvisations and they have a cool record.
Polarized: Robert joined this band after leaving Superbone. Cool to hear how this band’s songs progressed over the years. Noise rock with an Unwound twist.
Life Savings: Joeri played in Boutros Bubba with Gabry as a drummer. He plays guitar and sings in Life Savings. Very tight rock band somewhere between grunge and noise rock. After having released their album their songs seemed to slow down but not calm down, a bit like Kowloon Walled City.
Spoelstra: one man band of the guitarist and singer of Boutros Bubba. With no one holding him down, his song writing gets as unhinged and radicalized as he wants it to be. Evil musical genius dabbling in math, noise, electro and country.
Autorijdend Nederland: a newer band from Amsterdam with very clever songs and original structures. They played on our Hunk release party. Musically they’re closer to indie rock and their latest EP was released on the legendary Subroutine label.
Burnout Boys: Gabry from Life Savings plays drums in this punk rock band that also features Lennard who used to sing in Fine China Superbone in the early 00’s. They play big festivals.
Katadreuffe: long standing rock band from Amsterdam with a couple really good records. Fans of the Dischord post-hardcore sound from the late 90’s/early 00’s, if i’m not mistaken.
Alienbaby Collective: solo project of guitarist Liú Mottes from Amsterdam. She played a cool show at our previous release party. Saw her play shortly ago and that was magnificent – she now sings too and has the nicest voice.
Neighbours Burning Neighbours: they were already making a name for them when we invited them to our Plaguey release show 5 years ago. Some really fresh, noisy, angular stuff, but catchy at the same time. They finally released their album Burning Neighbours a couple weeks ago and the other day they played their last show and called it quits! Great album though.
Hands Up Who Wants To Die: Now this is not exactly a local band, they’re from Ireland in fact. But since we’re fans we made a weekend of gigs together work, we had one in Magasin 4 in Brussels and then our Hunk release show the day after. They’ve existed for about 15 years now and they’ve gone from noise rock with more or less regular song structures (for the genre) to a thing entirely of its own, their music is often times downright scary and their new front man really brings it all to life when you see them play.
“Hunk” unfolds as a labyrinth of sharp rhythms, maniacal vocals, and unexpected sonic detours. Here’s a detailed look at the tracks:
No Game Control
Wiebe: Best way to start a record is with a banger. When we were recording in London, the tourist submarine headed for the Titanic was lost (if you remember that silly/tragic story), I squeezed some lines about submarines into a silly text about toys for big boys and girls, and here you go.
Joeri: the first song on the album was also the first song that was written, we even played it with our previous drummer Robert.
Henk
Wiebe: One of the more ‘poppy’ songs on the album.The first few lines I stole from a book (often work that way) and made up the rest into a little story about a guy coming home (from work, I would think, I picture him with a hat), getting sick, stumbling into the house while seeing black cats everywhere around him (‘flying through the garage’). All three of us have cats at home, so we can relate.
In the video for Henk, I try to emulate Christopher Walken in the Fatboy Slim video for Weapon of Choice (and hopelessly fail, of course).
Joeri: I started writing the basis for this song during the pandemic lockdowns that we had, it led to some productiveness after all! Being a massive Deerhoof fan, i wrote this with them in mind, with the start-stop parts of the verses and all. Hope it’s not too obvious.
Sickening
Wiebe: I remember a documentary from the nineties about a group of metalheads in the USA accused and convicted of a murder, the main argument being ‘they listen to the devil’s music’. I think one of those guys even died in the electric chair. I guess that was in the back of my mind writing it.
Joeri: we try to go jazz on this one! one of my personal favourites for sure.
Big Jaws
Wiebe: Hard to make sense out of this one. What was I thinking? The music too is kinda weird. The theme would be pet love gone mad. Again, all three of us can relate.
Joeri: Mellotron! Even though it’s samples, i’m happy to have this instrument on a song for once. Manfred taps his sampler to do this part live too and we try to play along. Wayne, our producer, urged us to try something different vocally with this one. We considered leaving this one instrumental but Wiebe went for the deadpan spoken word approach instead.
Kleine Henk
Wiebe: A hunting party, searching the weaklings. Even the clown thinks this is too much, and everybody knows clowns usually don’t care.
Joeri: This one came to fruition in quite a unique way. During the pandemic, again, I wrote the music for the first minute and 30 seconds and didn’t know what to do with it, Wiebe made it into a complete song.
A Stranger Punched Me In The Face
Wiebe: Nice and heavy sludge rock song sung by the legendary Eric Paul (Psychic Graveyard, Arab on Radar, and more). We didn’t ask about the theme. We did make an alternate version of the song called ‘Where is Eric?’, just in case Eric would not deliver. He did though, so we’re forever in his debt.
Phoni Joni Superboni
Wiebe: Includes a version of the classic Arty Farty rhyme. When the party’s over the kids need to go home and sleep. The song features Dirk Bruinsma on saxophone, he’s famous for being in Brown vs. Brown, that was a great band! Apart from the lyrics, it’s our most pretentious song (arty farty, indeed).
Joeri: This one took a whole lot of practicing. The first few times we tried this song was when Robert was still in the band, he quit soon after I came up with the basic idea. (Can’t blame him!) The idea to have a longer, somewhat proggy song with a 13/8 time signature throughout that doesn’t change into another time signature is very Spoelstra (Jeroen Warntjes, who i played with in the band Boutros Bubba).
He doesn’t play on this one. Although for a short time we rehearsed with him as our drummer before Manfred joined and we did play this one with him on drums a couple times.
Neil Diamond
Wiebe: Neil Diamond is dead. But what happens with his body lying under the ground? Here we try to find an answer.
Hairy Head
Wiebe: Our horror song. Nasty! Beheadings, murder of small animals. Sickening, really!
Joeri: Spoelstra plays piano here. He wrote the piano intro and had recorded a couple different versions. We played around with the idea to have the piano in the front and centre of the song, maybe even omitting the guitars, but in the end we chose to make it a heavy guitar song with crazy piano chords in the right spots.
Superhenk
Wiebe: What has this world come to. We shall be entertained non-stop, 24 hours a day. It’ll all blow up some day, I’m afraid. Go read a book, kids!
