Picked this up on a whim from Escape Artist because I saw the words "90's" and "noise rock" and there are few better ways to grab my attention, but boy did
this disc far exceed my expectations. Now, I always considered myself a bit of a connoisseur of all things "noise rock", especially the really noisy
stuff that always tended to fall under the radar of the indie community. But up until I picked this up, I had never heard of Blunderbuss. Turns out that the
band has been around since the early 1990's, and started out playing thrashy hardcore before they evolved into a heavy, melodic rock outfit that ended up
releasing an album called Conspiracy on Homestead (which is now at the top of my to-get list...). Blunderbuss differed from many of the other bands
in the noisy indie scene with their ringing walls of guitar that was closer to Band Of Susans/Rhys Chatham and epic song lengths. The band seemed to drift
off into obscurity after the release of their debut, but lo and behold, we've got a new eponymous album in 2007 from the band on Escape Artist with the
entire lineup of Bill Baxter, James Nemeph and Ben Matthews intact, plus the addition of Jeff Ellsworth (Don Caballero/Creta Bourzia), and damn if this isn't
yet another amazing noise rock masterpiece that has me both looking back to my youth and forward to a feedback-drenched future. I can't beleive that
these guys weren't huge, their brand of chiming, hypnotic rock is so catchy and anthemic it's almost hard to take, as it moves from those awesome
Band Of Susans style blocks of drone riff to heartwrenching melody, driving, atonal rock similiar to Sonic Youth at times, and crushing distorted heaviness.
There's a perfect balance between the band's more ethereal noise pop and heavy, upbeat dirge riffage, and they work in lots of rolling tribal rhythms and
spacey electronic FX that keep this far from falling into tedium. This is so ridiculously catchy and heavy, and genuinely sounds like it came out of the peak
of the US noise/dirge rock underground, like a lost album from that time only now being discovered and dusted off, but sounding totally modern at the same
time. Highly highly recommended !!!!!!!