This has been sold out for awhile, finally got some back in on the shelf. We half-assed the writeup on this excellent album from MERZBOW when we had it in stock before, so here's our new assesment. This relatively recent (2001) full length from the ever-prolific Masami Akita comes from his "laptop era", and sees him mutating rock riffs and songs into storms of repetitious melody and loops of swarming locust electronics. Definitely one of Merzbow's more listenable and musical releases. Melancholy guitar rings out and loops into eternity, accompanied by a heavy drone and processed guitar noise. Trancey bass thuds cycle ad infinitely. "Celebration Day" is inspired by the Led Zeppelin song of the same name (from their album 3), and "Pleasant Valley Monday" is apparently inspired by the song "Pleasant Valley Sunday" from The Monkees (from their album "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones LTD"). "War Frog" leans towards the noisy whiteouts Merzbow is known for, but is anchored by a springy bass loop. Primarily a fusion of hypnotic loops, cascading patterns, and digital noise, Puroland (named after the Sanrio amusement park in the suburbs of Tokyo that is dedicated to Hello Kitty ) is all about rhythmic, surging blasts of localized power, much like old Skullflower, Total or Holland Skin Tunnel, and much more rooted in the bludgeoning trance guitar noise of those outfits than the apocalypse electronics of Japanese harsh noise. Definitely our favorite album from Merzbow's laptop era. Packaged in a beautiful digipack covered with butterflys and frogs that was designed by Lasse Marhaug from Jazkamer.