...The sound is so punchy and compressed, like he's deliberately set the recording level too high or something - the music sounds like it's gonna break your hi-fi if you play it too loud. It's that sense of 'perceived' loudness and the rampantly aggressive mix which makes this album so startling on first listen. And Rev's voice - which, incidentally, seems to mimic Vega's early vocal style - is so overdriven it just punches a big fucking hole in the mix, like all the other sounds get beaten into the background. There's simply not enough room for them all in the frequency spectrum. I imagine that the method of getting the music onto tape was as crucial to Martin as the actual compositions. It's all about density, reaching that point of critical mass where it seems like everything going to implode on itself at any minute. The recording process as Weapon of Mass Destruction.

That's not to say that the choons are of secondary importance. Far from it. The opening title track tears through the speakers with all guns blazing. It sounds like the Young Gods covering the Stooges' 'Penetration'. ...

Things get really strange when you get to "Shimmer", which starts out like another rocker, before being consumed by an avalanche of digital processing; smeared, stretched and crushed by delay, flanger and god knows what else, until it becomes unintelligible. It sounds like improvisation, as though the Digital FX Processor is Rev's new Lead Instrument. The sound becomes more insane and chaotic as Rev travels into the furthest reaches of freeform extemporisation, twisting knobs and pushing buttons as deftly and intuitively as Pharoah Sanders attacking the tenor sax at the peak of his powers. ...

"Painted" throws layers of abstract sound-matter over a beat that's pure mid-80's NYC Electro. It's like Arthur Baker jamming with Autechre. ...