I bought the t-shirt first, and then decided I should probably get the cd, too, if I’m going to go around wearing their shirt. I don’t recommend that as a logical way to find good music, but it certainly worked this time. The opening to Cosmic Trigger is a favorite of mine, it’s loud, aggressive rock and roll…only heavily—heavily—distorted. The throbbing, pulsing beat fades pretty quickly, so that the loud, aggressive electronic noise can take over, but that’s fun, too. Several tracks, named too, but not much to distinguish where they begin and end until track five, “Roulette,” which might shock and annoy noise fans. It’s very cool and interesting, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not harsh, assault noise. But there’s always track six, which ends the Cosmic Trigger set, “Brighter than 10,000 Cacaphonous Suns,” which isn’t unrelenting noise at first, but a lot of banging and crashing and yelling, with enough brief silences in between to make the bangs and crashes distinct. Hardcore noise fans should not despair, however, as “Brighter…” goes along, it gets noiser and noiser. (The six or seven fans in the audience seem very pleased at the end, anyway.)

2AM Visit is more straightforward noise, though not unrelievedly so. “Stabbed Straw Puppet,” for instance, starts off with low rumblings, with some little electronic jigs and jags over the top, until it gets really noisy. And even then… The final track, also called “2AM Visit,” ends with a large section of mostly quiet water and metal sounds.

But there is a lot of noise, so not to worry.

All in all, this might be quite a good noise album to start with, especially for people used to distinct gestures and explicit variety. (Clip is from end of “Rock Me” and beginning of “2AM Visit.”)

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