DESTROY ALL MUSIC

With such an album, I guess you'll want to stay away, if you are a neo-prog fan, and to be quite truthful, I couldn't blame them for doing so. Generally, I enjoy some off-the-wall music especially in the RIO field, but this band is taking things a bit far, without actually bringing anything new to the debate. This quintet is really about just being as obtuse and repulsive as one can get, by staying in a realms of written music (at least at times) and improvisation. They call themselves Spazzcore and in some ways this is not unjustified, but maybe not the way they'd like the term to be taken.

Not completely devoid of sense, the FL's soundscape is mostly stuff that's been done before, and therefore nothing new under the sun, since the 60's with Ornette Coleman or Pharoah Sanders, but without the brilliance or the sense of reaching beyond themselves. Which of course brings the vital question: why duplicate such obtuse music, if you do not bring something more. I have a hard time believing that it is for the sex & drugs & RnR trilogy, and unless their artistic vocation is to remain "nerds", they are not far from being poseurs, IMHO. In the genre, I've heard much worse and in some ways, the group does what it does rather well, but again, what's the use?

Just in case you're wondering this is usually considered their better album and arguably so, I can say it is the least uninteresting of the ones I've heard, the others not exactly inspiring me words polite enough to be able to write them here and remain to be read by my loyal "readership". Only for those who have a bit too much money and time on their hands. I have neither, and the library at least saved the second.

Right off the bat, (apparently) immediately more satisfying and whole than their debut, Constructive Destruction (1994). The so-called "destruction" is far more "constructed" on this (from the few tracks off the debut that I have heard). And this disc is made occasionally more whole in the combination of its parts.

This is, according to them, "Spazzcore", to me, Agit-Avant-Angst (alright alliterations, all). Blazing fast performances; they definitely know how to hold one's attention. I trust an appropriate match for many fans of RIO and Avant-Rock generally. This will be barreling right into your eardrums. Get ready.

Naturally, with much Avant-Rock, there's plenty of humor in this (see the short "Sparrow's Thin Lot"). Sometimes, this is just chaos, like on "Splurge" or the scurrying, hurried and then almost noisily meditative "The Necessary Impossibility of Determinism" (great title, by the way). Unmelodious, raucous and rude. It will take a true RIO fanatic to appreciate the whole of this album.

Some tracks, such as "(In Progress...)", take chaos and hone it toward something as composed as one can possibly expect from the Flying Luttenbachers... The rhythm section must carry the compositions to their various ends. The guitar and the horns are wild and unruly (I can't believe I hadn't used this word yet haha). Certainly, not all is lost, and some listeners, as noted, will find pleasure throughout (I had a pretty good time, personally).

Sometimes, they just ham it up with something classic, as with the Avant-Jazz tune "Tiamet En Arc" (my favorite on the album). Other highlights include the opener, "Demonic Velocities/20,000,000 Volts" and "Fist Through Glass".

True Rate: 3.5/5.0