I don't think there could be a more apropos title for this slab of destruction from one of the innovators of noise as we know it. Rather than the handmade instruments and conceptual endeavors of The Haters, Jupitter-Larsen simply works with the sound of cars smashing into one another, which will either entertain or be as annoying as all hell.

As I mentioned in my review of the split 7" a few weeks ago, these are easily two of my favorite artists working in the more experimentally focused metal scene (that currently doesn't have an inane genre tag, which I'm perfectly fine with). Unlike that single, this one sided LP has the two projects working collaboratively, with the results completely living up to expectations.

Jesu is back with another mammoth slab of religious iconography, loathing, and detuned metal chords played deadly slow. If Loveless wasn't already taken, that might be a more fitting title for this record of empty-hearted love songs.

Twenty Knives follow the compiled track "The Royal Vomitorium" and free EP The Royal Invitation with an intriguing album wherein a spaceship crashes and the pilot explores a weird terrain guided by a small robot. With an overblown digital game sensibility and an air of glam-electronica, this is slightly dated harmoniously malfunctioning music. I enjoy it more for knowing nothing about the artist and the whole concept being almost as laughable as it is mysterious.

While the use of old blues samples in modern songs is hardly a new idea, this is a great example of when a seemingly overused concept is reinvigorated. Here, the jazz pianist Adam Fairhall teams up with Paul J Rogers (best known to readers of Brainwashed as a member of The Long Dead Sevens) to mix the old with the new, highlighting the continuum of recorded music in the 20th century and performers in the 21st. The merging of Fairhall’s skill as a pianist along with Rogers more studio-orientated talents has lead to this fantastic collection of recordings which may not shatter all expectations but certainly put more life into the blues than most contemporary efforts.

In this second edition of our irregular overview of cassette culture, we turn our ears towards new music from some of our favorite tape labels including works by Deceh, Lunar Miasma, Reptile Brain, Basillica and Kyle Bobby Dunn amongst others.

The first part of Andrew McKenzie's unresolved sex trilogy was created as a soundtrack for performance artist Annie Sprinkle's "masturbation ritual," a role that it apparently filled quite successfully.  As a stand-alone effort, however, it is not among McKenzie's most rewarding and enduring works.  The problem is not lack of quality or ideas, but rather that it feels too unnaturally condensed to be truly satisfying.

Following logically from the female-centric Masturbatorium, the lengthier and more complex Fuck (1992) shifts the focus to male sexual energy, which manifests itself in considerably more visceral and aggressive music.  Having exclusively heard Andrew's more abstract late-period work before I finally got ahold of this album, I was completely blindsided by its explosive and visceral nature.  I like it– brute force suites The Hafler Trio beautifully.  This album is great.

Consistently idiosyncratic, Danny Hyde’s Aural Rage returns with an EP of acidic pop where he combines his trademark production with what could easily be considered mainstream vocals. This is easily the most consistent of his Aural Rage releases, relying less on recycling old samples and ideas by putting greater emphasis on melody and accessibility. Despite Hyde’s focus on approachability, this is still wonderfully mad music reflecting his standpoint between the mainstream and the underground.

Cut from a similar cloth as the previous single and EP, the first full fledged album from Puerto Rico Flowers doesn’t take any drastic leaps in style, but instead is a more developed, refined version of the former Clockcleaner vocalist John Sharkey III's modern goth pop project that perfectly balances nostalgia and modernism, and has been doing a good job of getting stuck in my head ever since I first heard it.

The Melvins are a touring machine; I have been fortunate enough to see them play four or five times during the last decade. They have also put their shows to tape on nearly a dozen releases. While many of those recordings are not top-shelf quality, this new release is the best document of the Melvins live experience to date.

There's a mix of joy and sadness for me when it comes to releases such as this. On one hand, there's an archeological fascination of seeing and hearing a band’s entire output compiled into a single release. However, there's also the slightly depressing realization that their hours of blood and sweat and trying to "make it" can be so succinctly collected. In this case, an entire career of unsung, aggressively sharp post-punk is tightly compiled into this lovingly packaged collection.

Bureau B is a boutique label that, in between new releases, has been tirelessly reissuing little-known albums from the German experimental music realm since 2007. Its most recent selection is Hans-Joachim Roedelius' 1987 solo piano album, Momenti Felici, which I have had on repeat since finally hearing it 24 years after release.

As my reviews of both of these projects over the past few years surely indicates, these are two of my favorite artists working in the post-post metal field, approaching the genre from a conceptual, almost academic mindset rather than a traditionalist one. It was perfectly logical for them to work together, and this 7" makes for a tantalizing teaser for their upcoming collaborative EP.

Sam McKinlay's work as The Rita is almost synonymous with the Harsh Noise Walls (HNW) within the noise community. In contrast to the ever changing and eclectic work of artists like Wolf Eyes and Prurient, the HNW adherents are all about worshiping the stagnant mass of barely changing static and white noise that old school artists like CCCC and the Incapacitants created. This LP surprised me with the amount of variation and depth that it actually has, considering what I was expecting.

At one time, it would have been unthinkable for a band renowned for their unrelenting volume, chaos and atonality to release an album with this title. However, Neubauten's modus operandi has always been to confound expectations and even after a decade of softening their sound, Silence is Sexy certainly confounded many listeners at the time. Looking back at it now, it is easy to look at it as the start of a new phase in the group’s development. It has certainly lost little of its potency in the last ten years.

Motion Sickness of Time Travel's Rachel Evans is having a very Emeralds-esque year, unleashing an impressive slew of excellent (and generally pretty limited) releases under a variety of guises. This particular one is her first full-length collaboration with her husband, Nova Scotian Arms' Grant Evans, and it unexpectedly avoids using her characteristic reverb-heavy vocals much at all.  That seems like it should be a significant handicap, but it apparently wasn't, as Grant and Rachel have created a beautifully melancholy and subtly psychedelic ambient opus.

After several years of limited-release, home-recorded solo recordings, Sean Ragon's fascinating neo-folk/post-punk project has finally made its formal debut as an actual band.  While deeply flawed at times, its unusual amalgamation of paganism, acoustic instrumentation, raw power, and wild-eyed intensity can be quite electrifying when it hits the mark.

In a recent interview, Kyle Bobby Dunn told Fracture Compound that he heard "the truth" in his favorite music, a truth that he associates with the "brutal honest beauty" of certain classical compositions. Kyle doesn't spell out what he thinks the truth is, but I suspect that Ways of Meaning provides a clue.