A "Heavy" Merzbow album
The Pitiful Anonymous | the Acres of Skin | 01/16/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"The added beats in the noise compositions have an interesting effect on Merzbow's music... Previous Merzbow was loud, yet meditative- constant and flowing high volume. The pounding electronic percussion adds urgency and intensity, creating what you could call 'extreme mosh music'. Merzbuta elicits the same sort of feelings that good, rhythmic metal does. It fills every frequency, everything is in your face, the level of sound is astounding. The beats begin and throughout the course of the each song morph into entirely different rhythms with such subtlety that the change is only noticable when it's complete; they're accented with rhythmic static and cymbals.
Familiar feedback and distortion is overlaid, but never sounds repetitive or too much like other Merzbow albums (although I have the heard the other 3 in the Merz series, they might be similar). After all these years, Akita still finds new frequencies and textures.
I take off a star because, while highly enjoyable, this album doesn't have as much different ideas as 1930 or other older, less organized releases. The entire album also has a very uniform sound, the songs start out with a beat and are slowly overwhelmed by layers upon layers of abrasive sound (to impressive effect, but still- a lack of variety).
I can imagine non-noise fans appreciating this due to the presence of a lot of rhythm. It could help them find appreciation of the older albums. Might not convince a newcomer that Merzbow is really something special, though. Note that this album is also still very harsh... no less so than 1930.
Overall- A very active, energetic and enjoyable release from Merzbow."
Awesome.
Cameron Davis | Sonora, CA | 07/14/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Really good merzbow album.
More of a beat than the others, but it's still good.
Plus I just had to bring the average up."