Mavis Concave/F.U.S. "Split" CD
[Realicide Youth]
No thanks. Mavis Concave opens up with eight tracks of lo-fi noise that basically consists of distorted drum machine blasts, a few spurts of distorted keyboards, and frantic distorted screaming that has a bit of an overdramatic edge - not to mention lyrics like, "My jaws are locked on your neck, I told you I'd get my revenge..." "Undecided Ghost" is quieter and uses sparse percussive sounds with faint shuffling noises and whispered vocals that provide a welcome breather implementing a little more of an atmosphere (granted it's only a minute long), leading into the spoken vocals and lightly filtered piano of "No Heart Beat No Blood Flow", which explodes with more screaming and bashing drums towards the latter moments... which continues on until closer "Ladybug, I'm Over" brings back the piano and more spacious arrangements. I'm not bothered by the raw recoding per se, I just think the vocals sound very forced and almost whiny in their overdramatic tendencies, and beyond that I honestly find very little value in the material at all. Some of the vocal arrangements are alright, and some of the sparser textures are mildly interesting, but as a whole it's just too random and all sounds pretty much the same. In my opinion this comes across as the kind of stuff that could be put together in one afternoon in a couple of hours, from conception to fruition. F.U.S. (Fucked Up Stupid), another one-man act, follows with six tracks, the only one of which that has a title is the unfortunate "Spic in the Bedroom". These songs are a bit longer and more electronic in nature, using lots of blips and whirrs underneath intense distorted screams that aren't half bad, granted they make no sense to me against the musical backdrop, but whatever. If nothing else these songs don't all sound the same, with some leaning more towards traditional harsh noise with thin wisps of distortion or thick low-end surges and chaotic arrangements, but I still don't care for it at all. The CD-R is spraypainted and comes in a crude xeroxed sleeve with photos of each artist and plain text done up in a cut and paste style. I'm all for D.I.Y. stuff but this one's not cutting it in the visual department either. Neither of these artists is generic, I'll give 'em that, but I really can't appreciate their efforts on this one. Sorry. It's simply not my thing. (2/10)
Running time - 25:33, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: I'm not really into any of 'em]
Realicide Youth Records - http://www.realicide.tk

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