review by: Roberto Martinellli

From the ever eclectically excellent tUMULt label comes this album of the most intense and satisfying noise music.

What else can you call it? Throughout the album's first 20 tracks, Burmese presents you with a sinister whirlwind of huge, flying scrap metal whipping by your head and crashing heavily into the ground. Heavy-handed drumming is played between caustic bouts of maniacal speed. The whole package is total chaos, yet nonetheless comes across as being in total control. While the music is a mess, it's hardly sloppy; while it's abrasive, the noise from the bass, guitar and fx manipulation is presented in a musical fashion.

In terms of atmosphere, Burmese outdoes many black metal bands that are trying their damnedest to achieve the same goal. At the forefront of this are the most completely fucked, angst out vocals you may ever hear. The vocals of Burmese totally put most black metal vocals to shame. Making the vocals even more engaging are the way they are interwoven within the music at different levels: sometimes in the forefront, sometimes in the background, and at all points in between. This aspect coupled with the wide (and always excellent) range that goes from the most depraved shrieking to evil growls makes this album one to definitely play extra loud.

Despite the comparisons, this music is by no means black metal, but achieves the same end in its approach. The blood red packaging and pictures of ruin and genocide fit well with the sonic approach of apocalyptic war death noise that the band pulls off so well. But Burmese avoids becoming a caricature of itself by mixing it up with awesome, seemingly random elements, like a drawing of an elephant under a tree on the cover and song titles like "Monkeys Tear Man to Shreds," "Kosovolvo," and "Crushed to a Crisp." Burmese doesn't need imaginative fantasy worlds to convey their darkness and evil; real life situations will do just fine. Consider song titles like "Bikini Atoll," "Himalayan Cross Volley" and "20 Missiles Later" to get an idea of where the band is coming from. It is only the last track, "Man Never Forgives Ape, Man Destroys Environment," which is an 18-minute repeated windy electronic loop (that is about 10 minutes too long) that prevents this from being a perfect album.

Where the so-called genres of "noise" or "power electronics" - where 70-minute albums are made up almost exclusively of at the most three ideas - are trying to be the most extreme, but are actually being the most boring and uninteresting, Burmese delivers. Everyone take note.