Zeroland

With their third "full-length" album, 2005's Zeroland, Poland's Antigama reiterate their distaste for common musical practices and commercial fashions by breaking more rules than even the most adventurous and eccentric listeners are bound to realize existed in the first place -- so much so that the quartet's astoundingly violent, short (averaging 90 seconds), and abstract "songs" tend to bleed into one another with little or no interruption, signal, or warning. Opening trio "Seed," "Izaak," and "Jazzy" combine into a jolting, nerve-damaging techno-grindcore barrage that often buries the band's instrumental prowess and the music's meticulous construction underneath the overwhelming onslaught. Four songs in, the curiously named "Starshit" eventually counters this ferocity with a no less unorthodox study in controlled feedback and distorted screams confined to a much lower volume, but the ensuing quartet of "How," "The View," "Wounded Butterfly," and "Sorry" once again resume the absolutely frenetic, ultra-violent, but consistently intriguing anti-math-metal equations from before. Finally, the wholly unexpected nine-minute title track collages assorted sound effects, quasi-industrial loops, and unfathomable spoken words, with hardly a clue of the preceding noise-fest in sight. In the end, even though it clocks in at barely 24 minutes, Zeroland is likely to offer days of intense study before it ever gives up most of its secrets.