Now reissued as a double Lp package on War On Music...

The debut album of wildy fucked-up pinball dizziness from the all-instrumental triple-guitar shred ensemble Electro Quarterstaff! That's right, bub, Winnipeg's Electro Quarterstaff employ three axemen in their ranks, along with a drummer who sounds like he's been snorting No-Doz for the past week straight, and there's not a bassist or vocalist in sight. Who needs 'em when Gretzky is all about the shred, the three guitarists spitting off slippery, labyrinthine riffs, 1000mph runs up and down the fretboard, and pinch harmonics everywhere, the different guitar parts layered and intertwined with each other over a blasting, stop-on-a-dime drummer rolling out all kinds of crushing thrash metal drive and complex polyrhythms. An obvious comparison would be The Fucking Champs, but this is like The Fucking Champs combined with Morbid Angel, Gorguts, and early Metallica, the sound of old school thrash being torn apart by the octopoidal tentacles of some tech-prog-shred monstrosity. But even with songs that are made up of countless epic riffs and constantly changing sections, Electro Quarterstaff also know how to keep it catchy and rockin'. Surrounded by the awesome psychedelic paintings of Blaine Throttle, Gretzky also has the Champs-y habit of giving their songs goofy, amusing titles ("The Right To Arm Bears", "Eyepatch Romance", "Something's Awry In The Hetfield Of Dreams"). As complex and tech as this album is, I love how rooted this is in classic Thrash Metal. Those total Bay Area style riffs that serve as the meat of the Quarterstaff's shred tapestries make this an one of my fave instrumental Metal albums, right up there with Suzukiton's Service repair Handbook, Behold...The Arctopus' Nano-Nucleonic, and Hematovore's debut.