Mission Of Burma
The Obliterati

THE REVIEW

Let's cut to the chase. At track number three, Donna Sumeria.
An opening of claustrophobic disco-music with a growing rhythm, the bass establishes itself heavy and slow, you feel that something is about to change, that little punk-funk guitar will go, and in its place, there will be thousands of well-placed punches to the gut without pause, and then that scream with a voice rich in pathos and engaging, that scream that opens your heart! But it doesn't end here: among schizophrenic guitars and the slow, magma-like progression of the bass, brief choruses arrive that would make the best British craftsmen pale in comparison, then they too end, and it was already a song for multiple orgasms if not for our masters of skill who, not satisfied, conclude with a delirious, obsessive, edgy, and terribly physical amalgam! Exclamation points are plentiful here…
On its own, Donna Sumeria is worth all the new bands put together.
And you're confused, you don't understand. This The Obliterati is an album from 2006 and is played by four forty-year-olds, yet it's incredibly fresh, has thousands of things to say, and always hits the target from start to finish. Mission Of Burma are one of the best-preserved legends of American post-hardcore/noise: active in the early eighties, they release just two albums and a handful of EPs. They return in our narrow and uncertain 2006 to deliver a masterpiece. A milestone beyond compare, I would say a pillar for all alternative rock to come.
The nearly six minutes of Donna Sumeria are already a comprehensive synthesis, but also listen carefully to the extreme and anguished lyricism of 13 or (what better gateway) the Beatles spun into overdrive in the opening 2wice.
All the tracks are visceral and ferocious, at first they caress you and then hit you violently, shattering your jaw and synapses. Even the most pop, rather power-pop track, Man In Decline, hides a werewolf-like and aggressive spirit.

Enough to get emotional for all fifty minutes of the album, there isn't a track that falls short. This is the greatest gift of this musical 2006, an important and authoritative album.
Probably the album of the year. But not only…