With ?II? Humanfly take the wheels off their former emo-punk past, and reveal themselves to be a band that is all about riffs that pierce the silence here with metallic fury, there with Mascis-like sheets of noise. There isn?t much of a progression beyond that, however.

The fact that most of the six tracks here are over eight minutes long, and a couple clock in at 10+, should have given the band plenty of space within which to stretch the riffage, and play a little more sonically. As good-to-great as tracks like ?Another Week in the Theme Park of Death?? and ?Tjanargata/A Passage to Reykjavik? sound on first hearing, soon the pattern emerges, and often what appears freestyle and expansive becomes predictable. All the ingredients for some heavy, memorable craziness is here, but Humanfly seem tentative just when they ought to be really kicking out the jams.

?II? does, however, point in the right direction, and the band seems poised to make a huge noise next time around. 7/10 -- Mike Wood (23 July, 2008)