Classic revisted with a remix twist as a bonus
Within the grindcore scene, few acts match Massachusetts act Agoraphobic Nosebleed in terms of intensity or speed (With more than a little help from the use of a drum machine), which has seen the band's sound go beyond the scenes limitations, which has often been coined as cybergrind.
While in the three years since the release of the band's last album (2003's Altered States Of America through Relapse Records), group founder/guitarist/drum programmer Scott Hull has kept himself busy (In the musical sense) with his other act Pig Destroyer, it hasn't meant a complete absence of activity within Agoraphobic Nosebleed entirely.
In 2005, Hull compiled an exhaustive collection of pre-Relapse Records (Up to 1998) material on a double album compilation Bestial Machinery (Discography Volume 1). Projected to appear around the same time was the re-release of their 1998 six-inch E.P. PCP Torpedo, but as fate would have it, the release was delayed. Twelve months later, and lo and behold, the long overdue re-release of PCP Torpedo is upon us, and it's safe to say that fans will attest that the wait has definitely been worth it.
Packaged as a double C.D., the first side houses the original ten tracks that made up PCP Torpedo, and from the opening sample by Richard Pryor (From 1978's Blue Collar) to Thanksgiving Day, the complete noise of the title track PCP Torpedo and Clorox Bong (Identity Picnic), the thick grooves of Thinning The Heard and Doubled Over to the sludge like tempo of Strong Stench Of Balance, Agoraphobic Nosebleed show absolutely no mercy throughout the grand total of seven chaotic minutes.
As for the bonus disc, ANBRX features fourteen very different remixes of the original tracks, which range from the atmospheric (Vinda Obmana's Three Ring Inferno Mix), the chaotic (Dev/Null & Xanopticon's Agoranopticon Xanophobic Mix and Merzbow's Agorzbow Merzbleed Mix), the funny (DJ Speedranch's Thanksgiving Day (Creed Are Twats & Nickelback Look Mike Bolton Mix)), the outright industrialised metallic takes (Jansky Noise's Decimated Spleencrawler Mix, Auek's Doubled Over (Throwing Blood Mix), James Plotkin's Phantomsmasher Mix and Submachine Drum's PCP Power Trip Mix), the doom sounding (Justin Broadrick's fairly straight down the line Flesh Of Jesu Mix) to the beat dominated monsters (Drokz & Tails' Smoke Hard Drugz Mix, Drokz's Harder Drugz Faster Mix, Hellz Army's Apocalypse Nosebleed Mix and Substance Abuse's Interchangeable Antichrist Mix and Bloodusted Mix). While not a huge fan of remixes, I have to admit that the reworking of the tracks does have more than enough interesting moments to outweigh the bad, and in the process gives fans an entirely new slant of Agoraphobic Nosebleed's unique noise.
While the remix component will no doubt appeal to a certain number of fans, the actual release of PCP Torpedo on C.D. for the first time is more than a reward in itself.
(Hydra Head Records/Riot! Distributors)
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