I avoid reading promo sheets, especially when the artist hails from the noisier quadrants of the experimental music community. Frequently artists or bands come up with all kinds of influences and declarations of intent that are detrimental to the appreciation of the music. Knowing that a reading of Lautr?amont, Allen Poe or some postmodernist thinker or other influenced this or that song or track does not really add anything to my enjoyment. Let the music speak for itself, I say.

Unluckily I have read the promo sheet of this CD. And, guess what, Lautr?amont actually was invoked. Now, what to think of that, when the noise blast of the record?s first track almost damages, first your speaker and then very nearly your inner ear? Said noise blast does not let off well into the second track of the album and here I am wondering why. Because hidden beneath the barrage of musical filth there seems to be lurking some kind of beauty. Why not put that beauty to the front of the mix? This smells of over-ripe and obsolete confrontational tactics that I hoped went out of fashion at the end of the eighties. I mean, do we need another Merzbow copy? I think not.

Further tracks mess around with piercing organ tones, freeform violin attacks, interjected with test tones, short wave bleeps, water moving down some kind of drain and noises from every possible region of the sonic palette. All this in a futile attempt to cleanse the listener?s soul and ears. But I almost got stuck with an actual earache.

What I am missing here, though, is structure. By which I mean: any structure. Core of the Coalman confuses throwing all kinds of sound sources together with making freeform sound sculptures. More importantly, they forget that even if you are making noisy instrumentals you still need to say something. Conjuring up a lot of unconnected sounds and then throwing them in the mix without a trace of nuance or sensitivity is not enough.

When stumbling upon a track that goes on for 26 minutes (?Mineola Crescent?), you might at the very least expect that some structure, some direction, even a story line will emerge after a while. Sadly those 26 minutes seem to last a lifetime without anything exciting happening.

There is not a music loving scribe in the world who truly enjoys coming to such a conclusion, but ?Anxiety? really is an excruciatingly bad record. Vade retro, Satanas! 1/10 -- Vincent Romain (12 September, 2007)