Yet again, I find myself wanting to split a tape in two. There’s some interesting, if not uniformly great, moments on this tape, and there are moments that feel too angsty and intentionally grim. My copy, #57 of 66, has spent quite a while cycling around in the tape deck, and I’ve come to love the simplistic three or four note descending synth pattern in what seems like the middle of one side. At first it seems almost ridiculous in its bareness, but it really grew on me. Likewise, one of the opening pieces lingers on a small range of tones that could be processed guitar or synth but sound most to me like contact mic’d throat hums. As each breath runs out, the pitch deviates further from the grounding tone, ratcheting up the dissonance and the texture of passing interference. However, the death metal-y vocals on the flip side lose me pretty quickly. Given the careful tension of some of the instrumental pieces, the voice feels like its shooting for a catharsis that’s a bit too easy. 6/10 -- Howard Martin (23 September, 2009)