November 12, 1998

The True Meaning Of Boodleybaye

At first glance, this record will make you want to throw up....

8 / 10 AT FIRST GLANCE, THIS RECORD WILL make you want to throw up. The name of the band, the nauseating song titles (personal favourite: !!! (it's a joke; it's supposed to be funny)!!!, the didactic sleevenotes, they all spell post-rock catastrophe.

Try to restrain yourself though, because bar Godspeed You Black Emperor, no-one has made a more innovative instrumental LP this year.

Based in New York, Mice Parade aren't really a band, so much as a front for the blurred vision of Adam Pierce. He's the man responsible for writing, performing and producing every sound you hear during this 74-minute avant-drone odyssey. Not a bad achievement - especially when you consider the complexity and sheer depth of the sounds featured here.

Part wasp knocking against glass, part Labradford, 'The True Meaning Of Boodleybaye' is a consistently scintillating and ambitious album. Built around stabbed keyboard drones, xylophone melodies and looped drum beats, it's a record that keeps pushing forward and, in 'Trudging Through The Freshly Cut Grass', comes close to replicating My Bloody Valentine's glucose-thick guitar sound.

Worth seeking out for that alone, it makes all their other crimes seem forgivable. Well, just about anyway.

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