Jessica Rylan dominates this record. After a while the drums and guitars start to fit together and Vampire Belt show themselves to be an entertaining bunch of aspirin-endorsing rockers (who have also worked with Jandek and John Olson), but Rylan's noise is immediately alluring above and beyond their ruckus.
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Listening to "Five Eyes," now, I can't imagine what it would sound like if Vampire Belt's Chris Corsano weren't present. He's butted heads with Jandek and John Olson before, but the percussion he lays down is chaotic and dominant, as important and central as the overdriven guitars of Bill Nace and the wiggling, churning noise of spent carburetors and psychedelic insects that Rylan spits out of her homemade machines. First impressions matter most in some cases, though, and that's why I feel like Rylan clearly dominates this collaboration. Her noise isn't just intriguing, it's outright spooky at times, sounding more organic than machines should be allowed to. I imagine worlds of tiny living things being squashed and laughed at or spat upon when her work takes center stage. It's so domineering that at times, before I gave the record more chances, the stuff Vampire Belt was laying down felt more like annoying intrusions than natural or necessary additions to the pieces.
"Glass Lion" is partially responsible for this initial impression. It sounds like an all-Can't piece and is by far the best piece on the record. It gurgles and churns like a demonic pot of coffee threatening to explode the next time any corporate suit walks by it. It seems less sporadic than anything else on the record, but it certainly isn't super-structured or careful. The fine line that it treads between pure, untouched sound and crafted noise is responsible for all the gushing I could possibly throw on it. When Vampire Belt re-enter the fray, their work sounds a little too typical comparatively.
"No Strings" exists, thankfully, to draw the two bands together. Corsano's drumming fits the weird sounds Can't lets loose and suddenly the whole record comes into a shaky focus. It's the 11+ minute finale to the album, but perhaps it should've been the first or second song as it draws together the band's two sounds so well. Going back and listening to "The Rat" and "False Teeth" is more enjoyable afterwards. The harmonic hum of guitar feedback and the rolling nonsense of snare drums feel better after "No Strings." When "War Lips" comes on after hearing "No Strings" its unrelenting power and shrieking intensity sound deadly and absolutely fantastic in their rabid convulsions.
It'd be great to see these two Massachusetts entities together on a stage. There are times when they sound more ferocious than Wolf Eyes and they don't need a growling vocalist to accomplish that. This is a great record with some truly rocking moments, but I highly suggest listening to the album backwards or in some invented order of some kind, just so long as "No Strings" happens early, preferably it should be the opening track. "The Rat" would serve just fine as a closer or as an interlude somewhere in the middle and the middle portion of the record, with its short songs and non-stop aggression, would seem all the more unhinged.
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