Mouthus Long Salt CD

Saying The Long Salt is a clattering, noisy mess is not so much a judgment call as a perfectly legitimate description -- what matters is whether one thinks that's an appealing prospect or not. Mouthus is very much in listening with those in the early 21st century noise brigade that believe there's no riff that can't be swathed in huge amounts of obscuring echo, and no lyric that can't be rendered near unintelligible, and as with the best such acts working in this vein, what makes The Long Salt enjoyable is how catchy it is at its base. In comparison to this, Psychocandy really is Pet Sounds, but as both meditative ambient flow -- consider the nervous keyboard-like mantra and squelching loops of feedback on "The Burns of Them," one of two songs featuring Tower Recordings refugee Samara Lubelski on appropriately murky vocals -- and the Dead C-like sound-upon-distanced-sound overload -- it's often a surprisingly captivating listen. In some ways the album doesn't fully hit its stride under "What Knife Say," where the combination of steady, half-industrial factory rhythm and keening vocals calls to mind what a less pastoral and more urban version of Flying Saucer Attack would sound like, both thrilling and crushing. After that the rest of The Long Salt carries on well down a variety of different paths, with "Ghetto Stairs," the other Lubelski collaboration (where she adds violin -- not easily heard but it can only be adding to the screeching overload) being the high point. ~ Ned Raggett

Personnel: Samara Lubelski (vocals).

The Wire (p.70) - "The intense and abstract brutality of the Mouthus sound is made even more nerve-wrenching here....Lubelski's violin and veiled vocals adding an extra dimension of warped sonic illusion to the already hallucinogenic and murky mix."