WHAT CAN & CAN'T GO ON

No-nonsense Tennessee math quartet's second from 1999 is a stunner-- a brave, messy stompdown with tireless endurance and Don Cab compulsions. Frankly I would recommend this album to no one, not a soul. It's a thoughtless, destructive gnash of perpetuated rhythms and strange preoccupations... downright petrified, this one. It's also really interesting and, even among the mess of screeches and scrawls, there's a musicality that somehow comes through. A touch more melodic than much mathrock and not quite as cold, the Hosemobile are akin to a very talented group of sixteen year-olds having a great time discovering what can be done with just a few instruments in a cellar somewhere deep in the American south. 'Heat Swome' plods a bit and can be disjointed but 'Her Hand' is more focused in a familiar math vein with some very cool changes and tempo alterations. A raw production here, you can hear the instruments for what they are, no modifications and few effects. 'Conglaciation' is yet a further improvement on pace and composition, a very nice cut of pure American mathrock, the band never revealing whether it's all intentional or made-up as they go. 8-minute bubbling Hendrix soup 'Gym', the spidery minimalism of 'Digger' builds gradually, and 24-minute behemoth 'Spinning Engine' is garage ambition of the highest order. Incessantly resourceful stuff, and it's nice someone has the guts to do it.