The guitar on this album is rather hypnotic, particularly in the first couple tracks. Frankly, if you can think of a better word for the guitar on "I'm Fine," I'd love to hear it. When this song is playing, it doesn't feel so much like you are listening to it, but rather that it is washing over you. The distorted guitar and the uptempo drums seem to surround you. The band follows that with "Splinters," one of a couple songs that features some skronking saxophone. Maybe it's the saxophone, and maybe it's the lyrics, or quite possibly, it's the utter chaos, but something about this song feels a bit like beat poetry. Performed by Captain Beefheart. An even better example of that beat poetry feel is "Song for Mating Mailmen." (And you thought no one would ever write a song for that particular group of people.) It is real easy to imagine some guy in a beret with a French cigarette hanging from his lips reciting a poem while this song plays in the background. Perhaps there is no better example of the difficult to describe quality than "Papio Papio (the Swamp Ape Again)." This is just a song with all-out blazing energy and a fair amount of discord. I doubt you have too many songs like this one on your iPod.

The thing about this band and this album is that as you go through it, you realize you're hearing something completely different. You'll probably also realize that you won't really know how to explain this album to your friends. But let's face it, that's one of the great things about music: passing along music that is truly different and perhaps a little challenging to listen to. I mean, if everyone sounded like a Grammy winner (that is to say, bland and safe), music wouldn't be worth exploring. Suffice it to say that if you explore music that is not easily pigeonholed or compared, this is a band and an album that you'll want to check out.