Noise-a-Go Go!!!

Alright, don't get me wrong, I think these guys are hilarious. This album is one of the funniest things I've come across and it makes me laugh even harder that they somehow got noticed enough to convince (at least by proxy) Relapse to release this. A kick in the balls to them, so good job guys. However, we unfortunately need to be objective here. Objectively speaking, this album is very difficult to accept as anything but a joke and even harder to withstand for more than one sitting. Let me explain.

Musically, you can expect pretty much what the cover alludes to. Totally incomprehensible "riffing" (quotes necessary), with the occasional pattern you can pick out that actually sounds halfway decent. These guys are going for one of the noisest interpretations of metal ever. I'm actually kind of surprised this is even on here, considering they've actually done work with Merzbow and even released an album with him, but whatever.

Anyway, musically, this has some real harshness to it, so good luck picking out any more than five riffs overall out of all 59 tracks. The other thing is that these guys are known for one thing, playing the shortest songs ever written. The vast majority of tracks on this album are a little under forty seconds long, and they all sound the same. You'll hear four hi-hat hits, then a sudden burst of crash, bass drum, snare, a sludge of chord work and some power electronics, a few grunts that probably aren't actual lyrics, and done. That's about every song on this album. Some of the songs burst out with really grooving guitar work, singing that fits the bill, and great beats, but the stress here is on the 'some' because that probably amounts to four songs total.

Plus, it's barely possible to tell which song is which on this album. If it weren't for the Divine movie clips they have at certain intervals, you'd probably think this CD was on random or you listened to it more than once. There's really no way to tell some of them apart when you hear the whole thing. In addition, it's freaking funny at first, but laughable to think that anyone would actually listen to this for its musical value. This CD will drain you of all feeling within half of the twenty minutes it takes to finish it. The only value it has is for comedy, there is no way in hell anyone actually says "hey, I want to pop in Noise-A-Go-Go to listen to it." You put this album in for one reason, to show someone else how funny it is, promptly turning it off to put it back in the collection. This is certainly not something you'd really listen to for more than the hilarity factor, other than occasionally ruining peoples' day as you drive down the street.

The presentation, however, is definitely pretty funny. I was somewhat disappointed by the artwork, because I was hoping these guys would be going for a Melt Banana-styled metal thing, which they could possibly do, but instead they just relied on typical gore metal garbage. However, they do it with this strange sense of humor that does recall older Japanese punk, so it has that going for it, with hilarious song titles like 'Poultry Within' or 'Driller Killer From Outer Space'. The lyrics, at least the few they included with the album (if there even are any more in reality), are also funny. When you have a couple of guys who occasionally dress as women on stage, fart into the microphone and sing "here comes harshit shock, the end of weak cock rock" over four seconds of music, you can kind of get what they're going for here. There is no way these guys are serious. I really liked the CD art itself, however, going for the weird face circle there with the silver of the CD. Looks rather nice.

But that's it, however. This CD has no real value musically. Other than maybe four good songs, one of which is pretty stellar noise grind, there is absolutely nothing here you can seriously say you want to listen to for the sake of the music. There just isn't. This is a joke, plain and simple, and the band is clearly aware of it. If you think they actually intended this to be anything more, and if, furthermore, you gave it a high rating because of that, I really don't think I'm going to listen to any of your opinions. If you're looking to buy this CD, keep in mind it's more of something to collect and show off to people, kind of like a rare Atari game like X-Man or something, but not really something you enjoy for what it is supposed to be. Be warned. I've given it a middle-range score because, one, there is something of music here now and then, two, it does have this strange quality to it that will draw in some extreme fans, and three, they do an okay job with the presentation. If I scored on music alone, it would be more like a 20, for the total amount of time in seconds that's actually good.

The Japanese always seem to be a step ahead in terms of extremity (just listen to noise artist Merzbow or watch Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale” for proof) and Gore Beyond Necropsy are certainly no exception. With fifty-nine insanely abrupt tracks, album artwork consisting primarily of deformed babies and a rather sickeningly unhealthy obsession with faeces, this album raises the boundaries of Grindcore to newer and more horrific limits.

The title says it all really…this album is filled with noise, noise and more noise. From “Faecal Gore Gore Attack!” to “Shitgobbling Hate Generation”, no listener is spared from this grinding and hissing assault. There is no melody whatsoever in Gore Beyond Necropsy’s music, with the horrendously foul production shrouding the music behind a wall of filth and disgust. Yet, whereas this could so easily have been a major factor in the album’s criticism, the coarse sound throughout actually helps to further embellish the band’s embracement of their revolting subject themes.

Of course, with song titles such as “Mild Shit Taste”, “Kill The Cock Rock Greedy Hog!” and “Human BBQ Burning Hell”, it is evident that Gore Beyond Necropsy’s gore-filled antics are not to be taken too seriously at all. This is further highlighted by the interspersing of several “Intro” tracks and the final “Outro”, which are simply random, distorted samples of seemingly old American television features that are very comical in the midst of such malice. In addition, after reading that band’s statement in the album’s liner notes that ‘All hot shits were excreted by G.B.N.’, it would be idiotic of the listener to feel offended by the grotesque imagery employed both visually and musically.

Perhaps not as sophisticated as such modern Grindcore acts as Agoraphobic Nosebleed or Nasum, Gore Beyond Necropsy have still produced an album in “Noise-A-Go Go!!!” that somehow manages to work. The production is atrocious; the musicality is hardly highly developed; yet it exudes diversity and unconventionality and would make a fine inclusion to the collection of any extreme music fan.

Originally written for http://www.blastwave.co.uk