What would it sound like if you had your face repeatedly slammed in a metal door by an angry BBC computer as it was loading? I imagine it would sound something like MoHa! ‘One Way Ticket to Candyland’ is a relentless barrage of electronic noise and drums that falls into the Brutal Prog category along with the likes of Stay Fucked and Animal. In short, compared to brutal prog the Aphex Twin or Atari Teenage Riot sound like Cilla Black.
Despite this being their third album I knew nothing of this band, so when I pressed play and blood started seeping out of every pore on my delicate head, I was impressed. ‘It Burns Twice’ starts off proceedings like the sound of one of those speed punch bags being hit repeatedly – dupta dupta dupta dupta!! Followed by frenetic jazz inflected electronic mayhem. ‘Aids Of Space’ is what the battle would sound like between a toaster and a drill. It’s like the march of the robots followed by the sound of a load of electronic instruments being thrown down a garbage shoot. ‘Prog O Rama’ is impossible to keep up with and even morphs into the theme from Batman briefly. Seriously how anybody writes this stuff is way beyond me.
Six songs in it seems like it’s a one trick pony with very little in the way of dynamics, which means that the compositions start to carry little or no impact. However despite its ugly name ‘The Shitman’ actually offers 7 minutes of respite with its ambient leanings and comparatively tuneful finale.
Similarly, ‘Sopp Pa Kugen’ takes a hold and really impresses and then …it just descends into a mess of freeform improv before building and morphing into 3 minutes of drone that was possibly recorded in a foundry as the workers were downing tools – all annoying sounds of metal being dropped into buckets, accompanied by a crackle here and creak there. ‘Oh My God It’s A Rave’ is simply hilarious and half way through we’re treated to someone strangling a rooster over and over again.
None of these descriptions are intended as either criticism or praise – I don’t know why but this album simply leaves me cold with little or no opinion on whether it’s good or bad. There’s moments when my ears prick up – ‘It Burns Twice’ and ‘Oh My God…’ but overall its a noisy and slightly irritating album that will probably never find its way to a cd player again (unless I want to piss the neighbours off).
Top Tracks: ‘Oh My God It’s A Rave’, ‘Prog O Rama’.
Released 29/09/2008 on Rune Grammofon
