This is some of the most fun you’ll have without the aid of power metal. Sloppy drums and drum machines, skronky guitars and certified video game sounding keyboards gleefully join hands and go on a dead-set-for-destruction romp through your headphones that leaves no stone those things. It’s more like non-idiomatic voice acting. It is to radio shows as Cecil Taylor is to Benny Goodman. Here’s why I think this: In an effort to find pure sound, a new understanding of a range of expressable human emotions rises to the surface. Less poetry-with-words is happening, or even poetry-with sound, and more poetry-with-gesture. It’s strange, because difficult-to-justify narratives work their way into your head if you just put this on and don’t concentrate on it fully; it’s a lot like some strange adventure is playing itself out within the deepest recesses of your stereo. That’s pretty difficult to find fault with. (MC)
CD, www.burntoak.ca