Most of you would probably know Jason Crumer first and foremost as one third of the scathing trio Facedowninshit, who have put out a couple albums of truly nasty, feedback-streaked Southern sludgemetal and are now on the esteemed Relapse roster. But Crumer has also been busy creating crushing, abrasive electronic noise on the side for years now with projects like Alumimum Noise, Now In Darkness World Stops Turning and the brutal sheet-metal improv noise group American Band (if you're at all into heavy Industrial noise, you need to check out the album that American Band did on Blossoming Noise - it pulverizes.). This 2006 full length on Ignivomous is Crumer's first actual solo album, and Hum Of An Imagined Environment is filled with over 44 minutes of annihilating wall-noise with jarring dynamic shifts in volume and harshness. Scraping metallic textures and loops of howling feedback come together in almost subdued-sounding drones, but are quickly blown apart by apocalyptic klaxon blasts. Avalanches of crumbling distortion swirl into thick walls of crunch and become swallowed up by static drones that resemble air raid sirens. On the third track "Obscene Sentimental", I hear these sounds towards the end of the track that almost sound like megadistorted guitar leads screaming through the Rita/Cherry Point style holocaust, and on "Born Again Virgin", monstrous death metal vocals rise up intermittently from Crumer's brutal miasma of chopped up industrial rhythms, junk noise feedback, and explosions of white noise, only to recede into a coda of scraped string instruments groaning under piles of rusted metal. And then the final track appears, a soft, blurred melodic drone a la Growing or Eno that only lasts a minute and a half, ending the brutal onslaught that came before with a beautiful, meditative wash of hum.

The album cover features a horrific cover painting from artist Helena Sanders that is a perfect visual accompaniment for Crumer's vicious blastscapes, depicting a human figure flayed of all of their flesh, set against an abstract background collage.