Meat Beat Manifesto represent everything that is right about electronic music. Perhaps it's their signature acoustic drum patterns that maintain their songs' timelessness. Perhaps it is leader Jack Dangers's ability to infuse each album with a variety of influences. With Actual Sounds and Voices, Dangers builds his songs around two jazz greats improvising in a recorded session. But the jazz influence never overpowers Meat Beat's bombastic vibe--it only enhances it. Considering their track record, it seems nearly impossible that Meat Beat Manifesto could top themselves. But records are made to be broken. CDs, however, and particularly this one, are meant to be played--over and over and over again. - Beth Bessmer

Entirely too much coffee running through my veins. The shakes are upon me, I can't focus. My fingers are rubbing together, I can feel the skin sloughing silently off, into my keyboard. I need to sleep soon, but the jitters have overtaken me. My ears are burning. Gotta reach out... find something to drive me into a mindless oblivion... a zen place alight with the fiery dance of aggressive energy. Meat Beat is there for me again... oh, my precious Meat Beat. You never fail me. Oh. Jack Dangers and company can always be relied upon for their special brand of heavy- bass grunching, hard- beat industrio-tek to help one get through moments such as these. With the menacing bass lines buried under schizophrenic drums, and bizarre samples emerging from the thickness, this music is meant for the black rooms. White strobes, glassy stares-- Meat Beat Manifesto is not merely heard, but felt deep in the intestines. Where Danger's 1996 epic Subliminal Sandwich spent far more time and energy on cross- genre doodling and experimentation, Actual Sounds and Voices grounds itself sturdily in primal rhythmic themes. Clearly intended for fans of the beat with an eye toward hard trance, the record emerges from a series of studio sessions which were later sampled and reshaped into this final product. Texture ranges from relatively low- key avant- jazzy on tracks like "The Thumb" to pure electro beat on "Three Floors Above You." Directions: open up your head, pour in the stimulants, plug your medulla oblongata into the album. Allow the pulse to control thy heartbeat. Do not be afraid. Let your ego go. Tease the fear, love the fear, Meat Beat will become your fear. Yeh. -James P. Wisdom, Pitchfork