Msg Rcvd

Jason Sanford's continuing exploration of post-industrial (in both senses of the word) noise in the service of permutations of song continues on MSG RCVD, coming out at a time when his band's sheer doggedness over the years has meant a new coming around to the kind of sonic possibilities the group has embraced. Thus, when in the hands of a younger band the grumbling electronic crunch and drumming of "Luminous Skull" might have simply been a fusion of early Fad Gadget and early Cop Shoot Cop, Neptune here add their own eerie intensity to both arrangements and performance, with the siren sound that interrupts further twisting things around. But it's far from solely doom and gloom. A keyboard-led break toward the end of "Negative Reversal" changes the tone of everything from burrowing aggression to a little romantic gentility, while "Dark Report"'s chant and quiet percussive start mean that the eruption of noise here and there provides contrasts instead of steady builds, a further way to demonstrate possibilities throughout instead of just doing the same thing. When the guitars burst in short Morse code-like tones, it's contextually more epic than most straightforward solos.