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Napoli Is Not Nepal, "Revolv_er"
The mix of smooth-jazz and four-on-the-floor beats on this new full-length is rather bland on this release from Shitkatapult, who is more commonly known for excellent releases that are usually somewhere between airy and desolate beat-driven songs and flat out boogie down, break out the boom box party pleasers. The grooves on Revolv_er do not always connect, however and I'm left feeling disappointed by its combo of live and electronic sounds.Shitkatapult
"A Night Outside in the Bunker" opens the album with an uninviting belch: the rhythms are clean and fun and then the live instruments begin to ruin everything in a smattering of jazz-like flourishes. Thankfully "Electrobastard" and "This World Is Sound" are more inviting. The latter ends up as a distorted ballad of sorts full of wonderful harmonies and it is backed by completely scathing beat. It's unfortunate that nearly everything goes awry from there on. "Annie Opper" is a great sound collage but is only a brief twenty-four second excursion while "Bangkok" is a nice song, but only nice. Its influences were all too obvious to me and this ruined the effect I think it was intended to have. "Selma" begins promisingly and then that live piano messes everything up: basically destroying the subtle mood that was established so flawlessly and smoothly at the beginning. This turns out to be a contagious problem that haunts most of the songs. Everything on the album just ends up sounding mediocre as a result. I can understand why Shitkatapult released this album, though—there are some fantastic beats and melodies here reminiscient of other performers on the label—but it has an almost overly clean gloss to it that leaves me feeling as if six consecutive days of listening to Merzbow or Whitehouse is a good idea. 
