A four-part concept EP from this Seattle group that gets so bizarre and epileptic I've had to come back to it several times to try to get a sense of what the fuck these guys are doing. Formerly a duo, Girth has now enlisted members of the obscure (but punishing) Seattle band Swarming Hordes and Brad Mowen (aka B.R.A.D., of Burning Witch/ASVA/The Accused fame) on vocals in order to execute this new chapter of their existence. The four songs that make up Sleeper, Awaken flow together as one larger nineteen minute piece, and each segment is a high energy blast of guitar/drum/keyboard/vocal based prog-spazz that seems to have been composed by utterly deranged mutants who have been dosed to the gills on Magma's 1,001 Degrees Centigrade, Scorn's Colossus, Univers Zero, late 80's speed metal and Throbbing Gristle's Second Annual Report . This is insane, disorientating speedskronk composed in intricate structures of fast thrash riffing, chaotic jazz seizures, stretched out slabs of ambient threat, skittering free improv percussion and whiteouts of blazingly fast blastbeats, deformed, dissonant guitars echoing through space, and hyperactive Moog solos. I'm totally at a loss as to what the concept behind these tracks are, with my only guide being the titles ("Confusion", "Betrayal", "Alone", and "Chaos", in that order) and the strange quotes that accompany them on the back of the CD case. Imagine Painkiller mixed with Orthrelm, a schizophrenic jazz/deathdub/speed assault that changes shape every fifteen seconds or so, throwing you off balance as the group splatters you with their mathy riffs and contorted guitar figures, psychedelic Slayer solos soaked in spaced-out digital delay, octopoidal drum assaults and passages of murderous calm, while Brad vomits a torrent of cosmic deathroar across the amphetamine rush of Girth's hyper-detailed avant-speedprog hallucination. This is a fucking brain shredder, crazed heavy prog on meth for fans of Tarantula Hawk, Crom-Tech, and Naked City. Includes great artwork from John Santos.