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     Tons of bands have tried to combine classic prog and the more furious thrashing aggression of hardcore and grindcore, a few faring better than the rest, and An Albatross definitely fall in the camp of the former. While their early releases were skronky, spazzy, low-fi blasts of carnival synths and tuneless hardcore, 2006's Blessphemy (Of The Peace Beast Feastgiver And The Bear Warp Kumite) had the band blasting off into a much more intense realm of prog-thrash psychosis. This album still blows me away whenever I listen to it; it's the sound of 70's prog rock after snorting meth for twelve hours straight, crazed carnivalesque organ melodies and spastic pop hooks zooming alongside hyperspeed blastbeats and explosions of psychedelic noise, bizarre angular arrangements and epic hardcore riffs, like Magma if the French progsters transformed into a speed metal band and were fronted by a kid who sounds more like a pissed off Macaque than anything. In other words, this sounds completely badass. Spastic and ridiculously hyper like the stuff that's been coming out on Load and Lovepump and Skin Graft, but like Ruins and Koenjihyakkei, these guys really have their prog chops down, spitting out awesome synth freakouts and insane alien melodies and insanely complex arrangements, but unlike those bands, An Albatross deliver this spastic Zeuhl-huffing circus prog sound via brutally fast and aggressive grind and thrash.

     This shit is amazing, barely a half hour long, but every second is packed with crazed calliope melodies, jarring stop/start arrangements, blasts of joyous brass fanfares, bizarro disco rhythms, wonky lightspeed keyboards, pummeling but super complex drumming, ripping thrash riffs that bloom into angular skronk, sometimes catchy and strangely poppy, the next second a roaring blast of convoluted grindcore. Furious and technical and totally unique, Blessphemy still holds up as one of their best albums ever. Definitely their craziest.