Brit noise rockers Geisha are back with a new vinyl-only release, and if you're a fan of their previous releases on Crucial Blast Mondo Dell'Orrore and Die Verbrechen Der Liebe, you'll want to pick this up as well. Geisha is one of the more unique sounding noise rock bands that I've been a fan of, with the emphasis on the noise aspect; their last cd on C-Blast, Die Verbrechen was so blown out and overdriven that it sounded like classic UK noise rock buried underneath an avalanche of Merzbowian skree, and yet beneath the punishing racket were some amazing songs with truly memorable melodies, all delivered with a savagery that was unlike any other band that I can think of. On Maudit a Minuit, Geisha go for a similiar sort of approach, combining caustic noise and textured distortion to massive rock songs, but the din has been scaled back a little, the sound a little less chaotic as they seem to focus on riffs this time around, and in fact reveal some proggy tendencies that weren't as easy to discern on their earlier blowouts.

Looking at this record, you'd think that it's a direct continuation from the last two, though. The record jacket is decorated in smeared pastel colorations and the tracking fuzz of a frozen videocassette frame, once again drawing from the mystery found in incomprehensibly blurred and distressed video images. The songs are again titled with bizarre in-jokes and cult film references that no doubt only make sense to the members of Geisha, and when you start to spin the a-side, the opener "I, Ian" begins to batter you with a familiar distorted attack, those signature howling vocals way back in the background, the sound a mix of Unsane and "You Made Me Realize"-era My Bloody Valentine that Geisha has patented as their own, and which made their first two albums so bludgeoning. The lurching, sludgy noise rock starts to get heavier, and some Sabbathy sludge creeps into the song, mixing with the swirling jangly guitars, and a blown-out poppy melody finally kicking in towards the end of the song in a storm of pounding drums and out-of-control feedback. On "The Men Who Could Read Their Own Minds", they kick in with another catchy, super-distorted riff that turns into a heavy noise rock dirge, actually sounding a little like Weezer, but bathed in layers of distortion and noise. It then starts to break into passages of circular guitar before they blast back into the pounding blown-out noise rock and eventually collapse into a squall of pure noise. The rest of Maudit has the band making a few more detours into similarly proggy parts as well as bouts of crawling black sludge, jangling noise rock, overdriven metallic crush and restrained post-rock calm. The song "Attack Team Cronenberg" on the b-side stands out with a first half that is pure krautrock pulse, a hypnotic rocking groove that stretches out beneath droning bass for several minutes until the band stomps on the distortion pedals and turns the second half into a monstrous metallic sludge feast lumbering through chaotic feedback and wah-pedal freakout.

This is fucking terrific stuff from Geisha, a little different from their past albums, but still based in that catchy, anthemic noise rock sound that I love so much. Highly recommended!