I'm under the influence. I'm not in my right mind. Because right now I'm listening to this album for the fourth time in a row. Even when I got Deerhunter's album, I wasn't as immediately crushed by the music so much that I had to hear it again to be sure it was that awesome. Maybe when I first heard Don Caballero's "Sure We Had Knives Around" I had to rewind it a few times, but that was playful - this is deadly serious.. Maybe on Earthless' album, I had to check to make sure it really was two 20-minute guitar freakouts in a row, but neither of those tracks rival the balls-out intensity and chest-thumping power of this entire album. I kind of hope these guys don't ever play in Seattle, because if they do, the City might burst into flame. Again.
The album is entirely instrumental, and the band is made up of 3 guys. One is playing 8,000 guitars, one has a bass strung with string theory, and then it's just Cthulhu on drums. It opens with a sickening and disorientating blast of noise - it sounds exactly like the title, "Megatheion" - as if the music is a 10-mile monolith that has just sprung legs and crushed a suburb. "Para5" is the track I am giving you. It is as the players are actually on fire, and are trying to put out the fire by playing something as shocking and unbelievably awesome as possible. It is divided into three parts, like the holy trinity, and I'm starting to wonder whether they're related. "Echoh Air" comes on a little slower, but gets continually louder and more nuts until it fades into "X-Bisitations," which is less a guitar freakout than what appears to be an actual live recording of Hell (if Hell were awesome; I think not). The title track starts with what sounds like a guitar loop, steadily building on it with more layers, drums, and bass, until at about 4 minutes or so you realize it has become quite loud, and by the time another few have gone by, it's positively deafening.
I think everybody should hear this album. But it's pretty hard to prepare yourself. I've listened to a lot of music and this is some of the most intense stuff I've heard in my life. I'd like to congratulate The Psychic Paramount for creating some utterly punishing music that's also really, really good.
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