"Accelerating the BPMs well past human tolerance levels with a hallucinogenic free associative pathology bordering on the mentally ill, PCP Torpedo is equal parts Total Grind nightmare and industrial-strength psychosis-not to mention an unequivocal demonstration of ANB's reckless & willful disregard for both the hearing threshold and basic human decency."
This is what hydra head had to say about the re-release of PCP Torpedo, which was originally released, on the unusual 6inch vinyl format. This new re-issue is packaged with a second remix cd.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed (ANb), a band started by Scott Hull in 1994, has had a constantly changing line-up with the only permanent member being Scott Hull, the use of drum machines began at the frustration of Scott Hull being unable to find a drummer to play with. This has lead to Agoraphobic Nosebleed being able to produce music that would have been impossible with a real drummer and songs have pushed passed the 1000bpm mark.
On this album Scott is joined by J. Randall (formerly of ISIS) on programming and vocals.
The first disc on this album lasts 6 minutes with 10 tracks, these short bursts of intense "hailstorm" drums and grinding guitars is one of the defining sounds of ANb. The disc begins with a sample of a conversation and then begins the remaining 5 minutes of intense grind. Scott Hull's guitar work on this album is up to his usual high standard (Scott also plays in Pig Destroyer in case any one was interested), he manages to combine his guitars with the programmed drums and combine them into a wall of noise rather than them becoming two separate entities in the music. The quality of the drum programming on this album is very good, there is variation between the "hailstorm" blast beats and a slower drumming that allows some other electronic sounds to come in and the use of samples is found on this release as is to be expected from Anb.
The vocals on this album are screamed, shouted, and growled by Randal who comes out of the wall of sound with enough power in his voice to make it fit into the music. With the guitars and drumming as intense as they are with PCP Torpedo, the vocals can sound weak in comparison but Randal does a great job of adding to the intensity of these 6 minutes.
The remix (ANbRX) cd is over an hour of remixes coming from different artists and bands, some of the most notable remixes are from Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Godflesh), James Plotkin (Khanate, Phantomsmasher) and Merzbow, the Japanese noise artists. Most of the artists coming from a background of extreme music manage to create something that fits well into the cd. The remixes have a lot of variation in sound and what comes across is more the remix artists own sound which makes for some interesting interpretations.
Overall this double album is excellent. It may seem expensive for just the 6minutes of PCP Torpedo but the ANbRX cd completes this package by not only allowing more listening of ANb but also a sample of some other artists who put there own sound into this release. This cd is a good introduction to ANb. For a sample of something by ANb check out their site, which has a link to a song (on the skull), which is a split with Isis covering the Melvins classic "Boris."
