+DOG+ – “Fuck Faced Failures” – [Love Earth Music]

Droning harsh noise from Los Angeles. Brand new release. Imagine Whitehouse on Xanax. The liner lists 11 members so it’s a surprise this album has such a homogeneous bedroom-noise feel to it. Most of the material is tasteful, patient arrangements of feedback and sickeningly distorted low and mid, accomplished on that nebulous instrument noise artists like to call ‘electronics.’ If I had to guess I’d say that here the term describes a complex mixer, some pedals and maybe a bit of laptoppery, but they could have had more to work with or they could have had less; it’s hard to tell cos it’s noise. Other liner credits include bass, guitar, organ and “metal.” If any of these instruments got up to much, the distortion has mostly swallowed it. Contrary to some claims, it does take talent to make good noise music, and +DOG+ have plenty of that. The warping, folding and pulverization of sound on ‘FFF’ produces tones that had me grinding my noise-freak teeth with glee. A sign this is good harsh noise is that the sounds give the same kind of satisfaction as picking at a scab: unpleasant but you are perversely compelled to continue. Sad monotonous female vocals start off t. 2. There’s some underwater screaming, moaning and scraping scattered around the tracks too. A mostly rad, unpretentious experiment in the monolithic vexation pioneered by 70s industrial. IRONICALLY YOUR DOG WILL HATE IT.