Thrash Metal Band Punisher Find All Their Music Removed From Mainland Chinese Platforms

Sucks to start a new day with bad news but Chinese thrash metal band Punisher have woken up today to learn that all their music has been removed from one of China’s biggest music platforms. If you know anything about China, it’s not surprising that this happened and not surprised that it happened without any transparency or any rhyme or reason. It’s just the way it goes up there – without adhering to any stated laws or legislation and then not having any form of appealing.

Read the full statement below and then go support the band – luckily they had a good friend outside of China upload their music to their Bandcamp page (Bandcamp is banned in China as well).

“Monday has brought us some bizarre news. We are suddenly notified that all our songs have been removed from the biggest online music streaming platform in China, and our artist profile has been banned on that platform. Meanwhile, on some other minor platforms, our fans have also found that all our songs have been removed.

It is simply because some weasel-like haters have repeatedly reported our songs to be “politically malicious”. And under the cultural censorship system in this land, the you-know-whos would rather give us a simple ban than take a real look at what we have really expressed. (Not to mention the music; no, no one really cares about the music itself in here.)

As a Thrash metal band, we do not wish to give upon our attitude against the darkness and unfairness of “the machine”, and we do not compromise to nonsense censorship. Yet we also do not label ourselves as some kind of rebellious heroes; we simply wish to express our true thoughts and ideas through our music, with no harm to any person, animal, subgroup or society.

So long story short, our songs are banned from a major online streaming platform in China. We have poured our endless effort, time, money and even hearts into our music and we would like to let the world hear them and discuss them. We care much more about the music itself than any kind of political nonsense. So we hear that most bands outside China have their songs uploaded on Spotify. But with limited access to the outside world, we have no clear clue how it works on Spotify or any other mainstream platforms, and we currently do not have a label to help us with all this. If you could give us any kind of suggestions, it would be highly appreciated.”

https://www.facebook.com/Punisherband