If ‘goddamn racket’ was your elders’ judgement on the death and grindcore records you used to bounce off your wall to as a kid, try to imagine their reaction to ‘real’ noise, the sort that sounds like squealing brake pads run through a vintage effects board as it equally destroys eardrums, audio equipment and patience.
Experimental power electronics noisenik Masami Akita has been artfully expanding sonic (in)tolerance for 34 years as Merzbow and here, after upwards of 500 releases, he makes another collaborative move.
That he’s joined forces with one of death/grind’s most abrasive, young outfits is a match made in sound spectrum heaven/hell as Full Of Hell’s stick-wielding bursts run headlong into caustic waves of a different quality. The scenario gets flipped on the second of this two-disc package as fast and crushing takes a backseat to jagged layers, astringent peals and industrial percussion.
It may sometimes sound like a band playing in a collapsing, rusty gear factory, but it’s also pushing extremities’ boundaries to higher plateaus of punishment and intensity./o:p
