Normally my days are much too short to bother with CDs that skip. Let alone CDs that has skips put on intentionally. This album has a lot of skipping, and they?re all intentional. Imagine my face when I read this on the handwritten info sheet that came with it.

Scissor Shock is operated by Adam Cooley who has made it his mission to record stuff that others wouldn?t normally record because, well, it wouldn?t make sense. Putting intentional skips on ?The Mars Travolta? may seem like just another prank but fortunately the prank isn?t as annoying as I thought it would be. The skips almost disappear in the midst of the freaked out glitch/noise rubble that?s been smeared out over this album?s eleven tracks.

Almost unclassifiable, all these tracks seem like little creative pockets in Cooley?s mind that spontaneously burst wide open to leave a shitload of impressions to take in. The massive airhorn drone that opens ?Your Chemistry Theories Are a Waste of Fucking Time? just functions as a warning sign for things to come. ?She?s Just Ahead? particularly is stuffed to the gills with bad Aphex Twin beats, glitch terror, moments of misleading space and weird cut up sounds before it evolves into a slowpaced piece ornamented with sparse guitar melodies and moody drones.

The subtle ?Body Melt? forms a much needed break from all the crazy sonic energy, sounding like an undeveloped Tim Hecker soundscape, oceanic and spacious, it gives you a moment to reflect on past madness. Be sure to take a few deep breaths though because before you know it the stop-start stutterbeats, noisy hiccups and everything inbetween take off again.

?The Mars Travolta? dangerously treads on this thin line between hit and miss and although the contrasts it spawns do sometimes make for moments of unexpected beauty, the blunt episodes of epileptic beats deconstruct any sort of climax this album would certainly benefit from. 6/10 -- Joris Heemskerk (14 August, 2007)