Merzbow
Pulse Demon

THE REVIEW

An epic start like Woodpecker No.1 for an album, I've never heard in my life. A wild assault on everything you consider music, which will soon be torn to pieces. Brutal Depressive Trve Black Metla? Laugh with me.

This monster is definitely the biggest and most dangerous that has ever crawled out of mother Merzbow's womb. Deafening whistles coil upon themselves in spirals of pain, battered by fake, clipped percussion that are nothing but noise. Noise everywhere, striking from the right to recreate itself on the left and strike harder. Ever more screaming. Like being in a hole on the surface of Neptune with winds moving at a speed measurable in four-five figures. Don't say you wouldn’t want to be there.

Don't expect to find a truce, not even between tracks. Like all good Harsh pieces, seamless playback and no fade-out. That's for wimps, come on. So, you won't have any protection until the end of the stinging Ultra Marine Blues (if God wills even more indescribable than the other tracks). And after those eleven minutes, we double up with Tokio Times Ten (such lovely music in Tokyo shops). And don’t think you’re done. You still have the infamous Worms Plastic Earthbound, a true monolith of pain, that makes many artists considered Harsh fade away. A shapeless monster that self-destructs every second in cyanide vibrations that crumble granite (do you have muscles in your eardrums?). 25 excruciating minutes, and then? We move on. Merzbow loves you.

If you're still wondering, yes, it hurts.