Voodoo Muzak - Blunt mp3 album

This is the first, and so far only vinyl album released by this impressive bunch of musicians. In my opinion "Gnats 'N' Iorreros" also deserves release on a more permanent format.The first side opens with "Crux" a noisy intro with sliding bass brings them in with a typical VM piece of hard 'n' heavy music - a short but bitter-sweet track. This track clearly owes more to mid-Eighties Power-Punk than to anything else. "Define" is another piece, this time picking up tempo & density and creating a fuzzy white mass of music. "Toast To Love" comes next with a more approachable blast of mid-paced music. "Blood Meat And Flesh" once more owes much to the so-called third wave of Punk, yet this is so much more complex and composed that anything those failed gutterbands came up with. "Headkick" begins with slow bursts of guitar, joined by the steady and dexterous bass and drums picking up into another confused piece of Rock chaos music, mainlining into a savage past. This is a much longer track than the others, giving you time to 'get into it'. "Your Role" is a comparatively commercial piece of music which seems to have a chorus, which itself threatens to dissolve into fragments of noise. It keeps itself together, resisting temptation to spin off at some tangent until near the end when it bursts into a deafening wall of noise. "Wolves" is one of their more experimental pieces - guitar chugging at a seemingly unhuman pace like an express train going out of control while the other instruments form complex rhythms around it. The tempo and structure changes - still keeping it's fair-pace but now a different, more 'normal' composition altogether. The first side closes with "Cracklings" which again shows VOODOO MUZAK at their most powerfully best, finishing at full speed.Side two opens with the BEEFHEART-like "Assault Victims" which is another high point on the album - there's some interesting sounds hidden beneath the savage blanket of white guitar which covers this track. "Our Need" has a fragmentary feel to it - most of the instruments sound gated to give it all a percussive feel over which the guitar stalks, as proud as a hunting tiger. "Edge" opens with an Industrial-type rhythm over which the guitar crawls in savage majesty. Again this shows VM in fine form, changing form and direction at the drop of a lead hat. This wouldn't make a bad single for them, although it's nothing like commercial. "Break Out" is off one of the other tape albums - a different version without the interesting percussion but possibly a tighter sound (if they could possibly GET any tighter!). "Murder Sites" again takes a series of different forms, with VM shapeshifting with lubricated ease. "Wax" is another instrumental, showing how well they can manage their complex kaleidoscopic tempo/structure changes. "Puanteur" finishes the album off with some French lyrics over a typical piece of muzak, ever threatening to collapse into the void, but never doing so.Not everyone's favourite flavour, but what they do, they prove themselves to be the best at. The 'B' side is a lot more approachable than the 'A' which is rather noisy and grating. I'd like to see them live, but I'm not sure my ears could take it. Keep an eye out for them - they deserve Success as an Experimental / Rock fusion.Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.