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FAIR WARNING: This might get a little "theorectical."

It's been a long while since a release has gotten me pissed off, but this little 3 incher sure does it. Not Let's Go Start The Revolution Pissed Off. Not I've Been Treated Unfairly and Repressed All My Life And It's Time For A Change Pissed Off. More like I Was Just Booed Off The Stage 4 Times In A Row At 97% On Crossroads On Expert In Guitar Hero Pissed Off; completely pointless. Yet I can't help it.

This is bad noise. And nothing is worse than bad noise because it is, literally, just noise. Now, I don't really want this to become an essay on what makes noise good or bad but it's got to happen a little because I've never had 'bad noise' quite so thrown in my face. Basically, you've got two main factions of noise: Harsh Noise and That Kind Of Noise That Doesn't Hurt But Is Just Interesting Sounds Being Played That Aren't Really Musical Or Anything. Often, the latter straddles the line between noise and drone. So, mainly, if you're not going to be giving people a headache with your CD, you better be presenting some cool noises and stuff that will entertain me.

I feel a little bad being harsh on a hometown noise girl but if she ain't gonna be harsh, somebody's gotta be, am I right? This CD is two tracks appropriately titled "Nerves" and "Endings." "Endings" comes first and is the far shorter of the two, clocking it in for 3 of the disc's 16 minutes. It starts off with some "Hey, listen to what the radio does when I put it between the channels!" static. This is actually the album's harshest (if you turn your stereo loud enough) moment but it's just, uh, really static; nothing changes until it decides to fade-out into a not quite high-pitched enough whine. "Nerves" makes some squiggly noises for awhile and then lapses into reverse-delay noise repetition (which can, admittedly, be awesome with the right noises) that goes on long enough to lull you into forgetting you're even listening to anything until, oh yeah, she jams five seconds of silence in there just to disturb your trance and remind you to listen to the two-note atonal guitar solo coming up. The reverse-delay then continues, helped along with some "Hey, listen to what the guitar does when I point a remote control at the pickups!" laser-space stuff. Then there's, of course, a random minute of silence before some barely audible feedback with some "Hey, listen to what the radio does when I put it close to an AM radio talk channel!" voices close 'er out. All in all: incredibly boring noises that I already recorded plenty of in the 9th grade.

Ultimately, this release taught me that those noise dudes are pretty talented and nothing is quite as unlistenable as amateur noise. It also prompted me, as at least a casual noise fan, to examine the nature of good noise versus bad noise which was fun and interesting to think about because it's, you know, noise. Up to this point, I'd really only encountered noise that was just too harsh for my taste; appreciable as something well-done but not for me. I wish I could trick myself into believing this was purposely bad noise created merely to cause that train of thought to start. That sort of subversive statement would've been brilliant. But, you know, it's just not. It's just bad noise.

Noveller at Amazon & Insound