siLLy puPPy PSYOPUS only took a mere two years to follow up their melody mutilating sonic assault “Our Puzzling Encounters Considered.” And although ODD SENSES pretty much picks up where that album left off with their insane mathcore metal that is turned up past 11 and is guaranteed to frighten small animals and parents, there has been drastic changes in instrumental duties! In fact only mainman Christopher Arp is back with his insane guitar antics and all other musicians are making their debut in the strange musical butchery of PSYOPUS. Firstly, Adam Frappolli has been replaced by Brain Woodruff on vocals. Secondly Fred Decoste has been replaced by Michael Horn on bass and finally Jason Bauers has usurped the percussive throne of Jon Cole and also contributes some marimba to the mix. Surprisingly, the band sounds relatively similar to the past in the shredding core elements that would strike fear into any sensitive ears but there are also plenty of fresh new elements on board to make this a worthy continuation of the sonic melody mutilations heard on the first two albums.

While the intro “44” is a short ambient slice of doom and despair, quickly the true opener “Medusa,” a track that describes the difficulty of getting over someone when you have to see them all the time, ushers in both the core elements of PSYOPUS but also finds Woodruff adding some death metal growls to the mix. Arp is on fire as he not only displays his hammer-ons from hell but manages to induce a trance-like experience from super-slides as well with as much intensity as you could expect. Despite all the usual mathcore elements on board with the PSYOPUS stamp of approval they add all kinds of new touches to create a more dynamic ear canal assault for the listener to engage in. Tracks 1-5 are pretty much heaviness of the usual PSYOPUS plan with creative new ways to destroy melodic developments and seduce sinister spirits into creating anti-earworms but there are plenty of surprises on ODD SENSES.

“Boogeyman” is quirky crazy as it begins with several members including the girl who left the telephone message on the previous album’s bonus track all taking turns reading poetry and each member reciting random words with a music box in the background but alternates with the brutal mathcore assault that we know so well. A tried and true tradition continues with a third installment of “Imogen’s Puzzle Pt 3’ only this time is recorded with a back backmasking technique without any obvious Satanic messages to be found. Paul McCartney is still alive and only Jay Chou can hear it “只有你能聽得到!” “Choker Chain” is the typical mathcore as usual but also continues the theme of the extended theme of troubles with women as it incorporates the echo effect of the hidden track on “Our Puzzling Encounters.” On that hidden track a girl leaves a telephone message and when she says the word ANNOYING it last for 23 minutes. On “Choker Chain” this effect is used repeatedly with irritating cliche clingy girlfriend quotes mixed which finds its way tucked in between the metal outbursts.

“Ms Shyflower” begins with Gregorian chants of some kind and then becomes more of a heavy progressive metal type of music heard from Enslaved but ultimately picks up with the zany aggro vocals however the guitars stay fairly reserved for Arp as it’s not about craziness and more about mood setting. Perhaps the most alternative track that utilizes dissonant chords rather than frenetic hammer-ons and finger tapping but still heavy as friggin’ hell. “A Murder To A Child” proves to be the most UN-PSYOPUS track of all and all about Arp’s delving into avant-garde classical music with dissonant guitar chords and bizarrely structured progressive compositional styles. It’s totally a classical acoustic piece with Matt Colbert helping out with classical guitar, Owen Tomaszewski on cello and Adam McOwen on violin. As usual Arp adds on an overly long hidden track that takes up over 20 minutes of real estate, however this one is actually pretty interesting when they shut the bleep up. The music is basically a continuity of different jam sessions that cover the gamut of different types of metal to simply hard rock. Unfortunately it also includes pathetic attempts to be funny with ridiculously stupid skits that are stupid as bleep. This is a good case of why musicians need to stray far from the comedy world and vice verse (hear that Eddie Murphy?) Nevertheless despite this final faux pas of stupidity, i really love this album. Very cool for anyone who delves into the extremities of metal.

siLLy puPPy The mathcore metal mutilators of melody PSYOPUS returned to terrorize the world with their second album OUR PUZZLING ENCOUNTERS CONSIDERED three whole years after their debut. And just like on “Ideas Of Reference” continue their highly technical noisefest led by the avant-shredder guitarist Christopher Arp who frenetically whizzes up and down the scale so fast with his tapping techniques that you have to be nimble minded to keep up with it. While most of the crew signed up for a second album, drummer Jon Cole did not and is replaced by the equally hyperactive freakish pummelations of Greg Herman. OUR PUZZLING ENCOUNTERS CONSIDERED pretty much picks up exactly where you’d expect if you’ve heard the debut. It unapologetically bursts onto the scene after a brief ambient intro and pummels the senses with extreme technical wizardry and the insane asylum electrocution style vocals of Adam Frappolli who sounds like he’s close to puking up his entire digestive system.

Unlike the previous album, this one has a lot more sound effects and while “Ideas” had a few segments of clean guitar jazz-fusion inspired instrumental passages, PUZZLING offers two time outs from the frenetic display of audio apocalypse. “Imogen’s Puzzle Pt 2” is pretty much an extended theme of “Imogen’s Puzzle” from album one. On this instrumental workout Arp really shines as he not only delivers all kinds of strange chord progressions and guitar tapping but creates a vast array of moods with ambient passages as well as shredding like there’s no tomorrow. “Siobhanis Song” is the other piece that slowly builds up from an album defying melodic ratcheting up of melodic harmonies of guitar and builds to higher intensity. It is actually light and fluffy and one of the rare pacifications before the Über-brutal “Happy Valentines Day” jumps back into hardcore extremities.

Obviously this is about as extreme as metal can get with with musicians dishing out a shotgun approach of energy that is designed to irritate and annoy and create the most dissonant and hardcore noise there is possible but this music is not noise for noise sake. These compositions are meticulously crafted in their little nerdy worlds and can be deciphered with great effort. While there is nothing on this album that will convince anyone who has already run for the hills once they heard the debut, this is a highly unique album with all kinds of guitar tricks and trinkets being back up by the absolutely insane vocals, bass and drumming skills of the band. While for the most part you have to enjoy being the ball in the pinball machine that is randomly beat and smacked every which way in random and unpredictable directions, if you have a tough skin you can actual penetrate the musical compositions. While i really love this kind of music when i’m feeling like a middle-finger to the world, there is one highly ANNOYING part and that’s the hidden tracks at the end that has a recorded phone message of a girl going on about sheet and when she says the word ANNOYING, it repeats for 23 minutes! And if you have the patience to sit through this (yeah, i did once and only once, there is an unnecessary Red Chord cover song (“Catelepsy”) at the end. Only for the most adventurous audio abusers out there.

siLLy puPPy Well, what do we have here? This is mathcore metal at its most extreme. In fact I believe this is extreme metal's version of free jazz with Christopher Arp's wild frenzied manic guitar scales at a million miles an hour with Fred DeCoste's equally fast bass often backing it up with some kind of bop equivalent going on at times. Adam Frapolli's vocals are intense and as crazed as anything i've ever heard. Maybe this could be described as Meshuggah meets Elliot Sharp, Zeena Parkins and maybe Sun Ra with some Unexpect thrown in for good measure. It's just out there! Let's not leave out Greg Herman's drumming that is equally on par with the rest of the band changing jazzy drum rolls to blastbeats and back in the matter of nanoseconds. Whew! This is exhausting stuff.

Guitarist Christopher Arp demonstrates on “Death, I” and “Imogen's Puzzle” by slowing it down a bit that there is indeed some kind of jazz / metal fusion going on here. Whether these scales and chord progressions are made up or a hybrid of something is beyond me but there is definitely a pattern here and not just random noise. I am a warped individual and I actually like this as I am attracted to the furthest extremes that music has to offer. You know you got something wild if it makes Mr Bungle seem closer to Barbara Streisand than this! This kind of stuff is reserved for those special moods as I surely could not listen to this too often as it lacks diversity but as a short burst of extreme intense energy it delivers quite effectively.