The Dead C: Patience (Badabing)

As with a previous Dead C album posted at Elsewhere (Secret Earth), this will be -- for most I would guess -- and endurance test rather than an album.

This time out though the four tracks (16 minutes, one and half, five and 14 respectively) are all instrumentals -- the drone vocals were something of a hinderance on Secret Earth -- and the whole feels much more coherent and cohesive.

Much of this is also less of a sonic assault than on some previous releases (or those by guitarist Michael Morley as Gate) and while it delivers the customary squall of feedback and distortion these aural landscapes (which shift and wrestle) can be quite disarming. But not charming.

Doubtless this is music to be played very loud ("migraine music" a friend calls it, if he calls it music at all) but my discovery on this one is that when played at something just above low volume it has a curiously pleasurable ambient quality.

It is music which demands attention but works very well as sound which simply exists for its own sake.

Good album title. Says it all.

Challenged by this? Then check out this.