CATACLYSM

The pace is kept hectic throughout - what with all the "angular" guitar lines that excite the music journalists - and the compositions are performed with skill and confidence, but the songs themselves are the problem as none of them really exhibits anything new - each is just a refinement of music that has already happened, be it by Henry Cow or Ruins or any of a hundred other bands who actually pioneered (some would say progressed!) during their existence. What makes it hard to swallow is that The Flying Luttenbachers aren't a new band, but one with fifteen years of history and exposure to the business - so surely they realised that they were releasing a relatively mundane collection of songs?

"Cataclysm" still has its moments (the two parter "Regime" is a lot of fun and would have made a more impressive EP on its own) but don't feel compelled to pick this up until you've exhausted the more earnestly progressive bands from the avant-progressive realm.