Merzbow - Rattus Rattus

Let it never be said that I won't give someone a second chance (or a third, fourth or fifth). Even after being turned off by most of his previous work, I decided that I would give Mr. Masami Akita yet one more chance and listen to his newest work Rattus Rattus in the hopes that I would somehow understand just the faintest sliver of why someone would listen to a full length release of his. On his Animal Magnetism, he not only let loose with his trademark sound of brutal noise, but also included samples of his pet chickens, and Rattus Rattus brings the digital terror once again and also includes sonic statements from pet rats.

I shouldn't even be surprised by now that this release is almost fifty minutes of sheer noise with only a few reprieves. Since moving from analogue to digital, Akita has had even more tools at his disposal for absolutely shredding and completely fucking with sound, and Rattus Rattus is a speaker shredding blast that lets me know he certainly isn't softening as he gets older. Two shorter tracks open the release ("155" and "166") and each offer no break at all from the onslaught, pummeling away for six and eight minutes respectively before he unveils the nearly forty-minute album-titled closing track in which shrieking digital shards of noise are interspersed with very short periods of quiet.

At low volumes, I can at times appreciate just how insanely Akita mangles sound itself on Rattus Rattus, but even as a former psychology major can't understand why someone would actually choose to listen to it. In the past year, I've gone through not only a root canal, but a tooth implant procedure in which a small metal rod was inserted into the bone in my jaw (which included lots of drilling, blood and pain) and interestingly enough, listening to Rattus Rattus invokes the memory of having my mouth open as foreign objects bored into bone in my skull. I guess for you extreme masochists (does any Merzbow fan at least partially qualify?) out there, this release will offer a nice pounding for your cerebral cortex. For all others, you'll want to steer clear.

Rating: 0

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