You might expect a band called Samurai Pizza Cats to be a tad irreverent and wouldn’t take themselves too seriously, and you’d be quite right. However, when it comes to music, this German crew are all business and have formulated a rebel-rousing sound all their very own. Fusing metalcore, deathcore and electronic elements into an electric whole, Samurai Pizza Cats are a unique proposition, and one that’s hard to ignore. Formed in 2021, they released their debut album two years later (YOU’RE HELLCOME) which found them gatecrashing the German charts. Proving that was no fluke, sophomore album Press Start serves up a dozen high-octane cuts that finds Samurai Pizza Cats throwing all sorts of neat moves and raises the bar extremely high for all who follow.

After a brief, slightly surreal introduction, Samurai Pizza Cat get straight down to business with opener proper ‘Pandastruck’. Avoiding easy categorisation it is at once heavy as hell, yet also lithe and operates with an unashamedly pop sensibility. The two combine in strange ways, but the result is a song (and indeed, whole album) that operates with wrecking ball swing; the beats are heavy and sway from speaker to speaker like a prizefighter whilst the melody also has an inherent groove and stalks in a similar fashion. The result is a razor sharp pendulum that inches closer with every note that passes, the band becoming a kind of musical executioner who threaten to behead you at any moment. That becomes most evident on ‘Ramen-Man’ (a track featuring BABYBEARD) where the band operate with clinical precision, delivering a sound that’s barbed, dangerous and hot to the touch.

If I’ve made Samurai Pizza Cats out to be a heavy entity, that’s precisely because they are, yet there’s always a tension of opposites to their sound to act as a counterweight. Take ‘Super Zoo’, for example; it’s a track that contains some of the heaviest deathcore known to man, as if it has been dredged from the very depth of Hades, yet there’s also an insanely catchy pop motif as a chorus to add light to the shade. While it is easy to throw such elements together, it’s hard to make them sound coherent, and it is that ability which elevates Samurai Pizza Cats above their peers. It also makes Press Start a whole bunch of fun, and it is never quite knowing in what guise the band will appear that makes this such an engaging effort and ensures the listener’s attention never flags.

In addition to the release of this album, the band also have their very own music festival planned (with an impressive line-up), all of which means that this is going to be the Year Of The Samurai Pizza Cats.

• Press Start is released via Century Media Records on 27th March 2026.

• Website | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube

  Track List:

1. Insert Coin
2. Pandastruck
3. T-Rex(plosion) (feat. Ankor)
4. Fear No Slice
5. Error 808
6. Level Up
7. Ramen-Man (feat. BABYBEARD)
8. Penguin Supreme
9. Super Zero
10. City Of Gold
11. Thanks For Playing
12. Pizza Homicide – STVW Version