White Mice, "BLasssTPhlEgMEICE" (Load Records, 2007)

White Mice, BLasssTPhlEgMEICE
Load Records, 2007

Blassst! The White Mice have done it again! After 2005's brutally fun ASSPhiXXXEATATESHUN, I didn't think I had any face left to melt. Well, I was dead WRONG! On BLasssTPhlEgMEICE, the tortured lab rat Providence, RI power trio of Mouseeattoungue (bass), Euronymouse (drums), and Anonymouse (oscillator + electronics) will eviscerate your ears and leave your mind reeling in the dub noise wastes of utter annihilation. This shit is so grim and raw, only the rodents and roaches will survive BLasssTPhlEgMEICE's thirteen selections of grinding, blackened noise metal.

When compared to other bands on the legendary Load label, I've often felt that the White Mice have gotten the short end of the stick. If you're looking for a scapegoat, blame it on their schtick: costumes and constant mouse-related puns. Musically, there is no good reason why this terrifying trio should be held in any less regard than Air Conditioning, Sightings, Gang Wizard, or even Lightning Bolt. Their cacophonous combination of screeching oscillations, sickening, bowel spilling bass, and bludgeoning double kick drumming has never sounded better than it does on BLasssTPhlEgMEICE. For forty minutes straight the White Mice set your balls on fire and watch as your writhe in pain while they laugh and perform unnecessary surgery on the rest of your body: switching from grinding torture-porn doom grooves to mid-tempo black metal blender noise. The production of this record is a definite improvement over ASSPhiXXXEATATESHUN, a subtle shift I took notice of just before it violently grabbed me by the throat. Their sound is fuller, more pronounced, and every sound shines with an alarming clarity: the blinding flash of a knife's blade before it fatally plunges into your fat belly.

For my money, BLasssTPhlEgMEICE is the best full-length Load has released this year. The White Mice have a new album due on Blossoming Noise any day now, so you'd better hurry up and bite into BLasssTPhlEgMEICE before this tasty cheese is moldy!

Review Archive Series #6: Mindflayer, Expedition to the Hairier Peaks cd

The following review represents one in a series of reviews published during my tenure as the resident music critic and assistant Arts Editor for The Phoenix, the official student newspaper of UBC-Okanagan in Kelowna, B.C. They are being reprinted here because I feel that while these reviews might represent a point of serious-suckitude in the developement of my writing, they are examples of my earliest attempts at criticism (if jerking off on an album's cover can be considered criticism), and above all: these albums desperately deserve the attention of your tinnitus-damaged ears.



















Mindflayer, Expedition to the Hairier Peaks
Corleone Records, 2005

Expedition to the Hairier Peaks opens with a maelstrom of messy noise bursts that burr and whirl about in a harsh, barely discernible rhythm: setting the tone for an album whose appeal is limited at best to the most rabid fans of LOAD Records extended family. Once the initial blast is over, and the radioactive dust begins to settle, Chippendales psychotic drumming fades into the mix. By the time the third track, "Netherworld Bike Patrol C.H.A.O.S.", blows out your speakers, a discernible pattern begins to emerge from the ruins Mindflayer have left smoldering in their wake. "Time Tunnel (Cosmic Crypt Chronoscape Collision Course)" draws the listener deeper into the album's painfully psychedelic keyboard and drum jihad, and the song's repetetive rhythm and noise combo holds brutally hypnotic power over the bludgeoned listener.

Previous releases had Mindflayer tagged by some as the mere bastard lovechild of Lightning Bolt and Forcefield. Nothing could be further from the truth. Expedition to the Hairier Peaks, their fouth album, indicates the deadly seriousness of this duo as a not the work of a side-project. Set apart from their tamer siblings, Mindflayer are an altogether different animal: a nasty-ass irascible beast with acid blood dripping from its frothing rabid chittering maw. Expedition to the Hairier Peaks features three epic patience-testers, which is fitting considering the albums name is a play on the name of a Dungeons and Dragons add-on. The fourteen minute "Nasty Meeting at Peak Park (Exploding Remains)" stands as the most terrifying amalgamation of Matt Brinkman's throbbing electronic gristle, and Chippendale's drumming is the stuff to inspire all-out prog-genocide. Throughout the album, vocals are barely audible, buried deep beneath layers of sound. When heard, the vocals are distorted, demonic, and screamed like scraped nails across a chalk board of white noise. There is little rock to be found in the raging wind-tunnel noise at the top of the Hairier Peaks, but that shouldn't turn curiosity seekers away. This stuff may be for the dudes whose ears are already ringing, but it isn't Merzbow, and it will lead to a greater appreciation of Forcefield, Lightning Bolt, and all their related excursions into your ear (especially the excellent Brian Chippendale solo-project, Black Pus!).