(2020) Doctor Nerve - LOUD


Review:
Mixed by Nik Chinboukas whose recording credits include Testament and Metal Allegiance, and mastered by Thomas Dimuzio, LOUD brings you four new Doctor Nerve tunes (and 11 bonus tracks) that are as aggressive as they are intricate. At first blush, LOUD seems to have much in common with what the group was doing a quarter-century ago – the horns wailing over power chords, the tightly-composed overlapping structures, as well as a general irreverence that comes across as a bunch of serious musicians just having fun with doing the unexpected. The album consists of four main tracks, each 3 to 6 minutes in length. Nonetheless, it is not an EP. Instead, there are one, two, or three alternative mixes of each track featuring different guest musicians adding guitar solos. These individuals include Henry Kaiser, Mike Keneally, Robert Musso, Kevin Hufnagel, René Lussier, Andrew Hawkins, Matt Hollenberg, and Shawn Persinger. As a consequence, when listening to LOUD, there is a fair amount of repetition, and the album is best thought of as a substrate for more active listening rather than background music. If You Were Me Right Now I’d Be Dead blasts off aggressively with outside blowing and dense patterns over weaponized heavy guitar. Painting with Bullets focuses on rhythmic complexity and centers around staccato piano chords. Meta 04 takes the rhythm in even more twisted and convoluted directions and couples it with guitar and horn flourishes and atmospherics. Uses Probe Form is another densely contrapuntal piece with active bass and piano work under horn and guitar solos. And that’s just the initial takes – each of the aforementioned guitarists add their own flavors in the additional cuts.





Tracklist:



Media Report:
Genre: jazz, prog-rock
Source: CD
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits