diebold

Diebold

Montreal's Bangor Records, the label that brought you the Mile-End Ladies String Auxiliary, returns with an album of bass vs. drums jam tracks recorded live and coated - nay, caked - in a layer of fizzing distortion. Toughened up, low-end grooves are the order of the day, with tracks like 'Sure' and 'Usaid' bringing a real heaviness, with a sound mix that's so loud, and so far into the red that you won't even notice that there are only two instruments being played at any one time - the residual fuzz takes up the remainder of the bandwidth. 'Opera' marks something of a departure, and could almost be a Sonic Youth instrumental, fusing melodic, raga-like progressions with a thrashy sense of propulsion, but there's really little deviation from the path of bottom-heavy rhythm tracks and distortion frenzies.