Merzbow, Keiji Haino, Balazs Pandi, An Untroublesome Defencelessness

Chaos and mayhem of the best kind are in order on the just released Merzbow, Keiji Haino and Balazs Pandi album An Untroublesome Defencelessness (rarenoise CD, double LP or DL).

Merzbow's noisy electronics, Haino's very electric outside guitar and Pandi's turbulent mass drumming give us truly avant noise-metal music as in-your-face as it is deep in space.

This is marvelously alive, extreme hard-core stuff that is neither polite nor in any way relenting. All three musical personalities remain distinct and brilliantly brash. Japan avant in all its boldness is yours to appreciate, cut-by-cut. One can just get mesmerized by it all, or one can very profitably and enlighteningly follow the three discrete voices and the way they interact in contrasting, intersecting sound-block masses throughout.

Guitarists will--if they are open to this kind of thing--gain a real appreciation of what Haino is doing. But then of course Merzbow and Pandi co-partner with Haino so that the insistent blend elevates the music onto an astral plane.

Some may be shocked by this--or annoyed. That is their business. The rest of us can entrench ourselves in the wildly stratospheric walls of sound. This is cosmic noise rock at its best! Latch on.