This was the album that taught me that music can be simultaneously chaotic and structured, deconstructed and still coherent, incoherent and still beautifully articulate. It's like storm and stress took some great post rock songs and gutted them, removing the musculature and skeleton and leaving the skin, the nervous system and the vital organs, resulting in a jellyfish like organism of an album... and just like a jellyfish this album is irradiant and shimmering and beautiful, abstract and amorphous and warm. Unlike real jellyfish, you can swim with this album and not get stung and left paralyzed, drowning in the middle of the sea....yes, this album is better than actual jellyfish. This is a noise rock album that can be enjoyed by people who generally don't enjoy noise-rock, because these noises are safe to touch and taste good with a little springtime seasonal ale.....I think the title is very apt....the producer and engineer, Jim O'Rourke is very much a genius behind the big sound boards and helps set this album apart from it's slightly noisier predecessor...I highly recommend this album for the adventurous listener, the person who is somewhat bored with the consistency of 'driven' rock music...also for fans of Don Cab and Battles, Iam Williams other two bands, if just to check out a different side of his repetoire.

decent flow on the cd. i'll just do a song by song review:

1: catchiest song on the cd. the singing is very much in place, which is unusual for a primarily instrumental band. soothing, and spastic at the same time. 5/5

2: beginning is a bit annoying, but cool none the less. next part is reggaeish(sort of), nice guitar work. it goes into some more noise for a while, a bit boring. a pretty bland song overall. still good, but not up to their standards. 3/5

3: an audible rhythm! amazing. sounds very... non existant. as though the music is just some passing spurt or incident, a minor part of a whole event. very entrancing. it feels like watching the world in fast forward from a small capsule with this song playing in it; distant. 4/5

4: beginning is neat, i like the vocals, you cant really hear what he's saying. just kind of mumbling. the second time when he sings is great, creepy(?) but not really. are those guitars? what are they playing them with? 2nd section of the song is great, the guitars sound very strange and the drums are out of control. 5/5

those four songs should give you a good idea of what the cd is like. four stars because they can do much better (see first cd). this is also a completely different style from their first cd, much more soothing and focused on guitar repetition. you have to hear it to understand how weird these songs are.

Approach this album with caution. If you are truly not willing to have a listening experience ala Miles Davis or U.S. Maple, then you won't like this. The playing is free-form. The musicians are excellent. The pieces are un-together, but such that they are (somehow?) together. There is both beauty and ugliness on this album, often at the same time. Pieces rattle and bleep imperceptibly as time passes and one begins to wonder "Why the racket?". By the time it's over, one is thinking "What happened?". Exactly . . . exactly.

what is to rok is art... so good... melts in your mind in the summer sun, sticks to your guts.