East West Blast Test

With music technology progressing by leaps and bounds in the early 21st century, more and more collaborations began occurring between musicians not in the same room together -- let alone the same region. Ipecac Records seems to feature quite a few of these cross-country collaborations (General Patton vs. the X-Ecutioners, etc.), which continued in early 2006, with the release of the sophomore album of East West Blast Test, Popular Music for Unpopular People. The "band" is comprised of No Use for a Name multi-instrumentalist Chris Dodge and Phantomsmasher drummer Dave Witte, who follow a similar game plan as their 2000 self-titled debut album. Witte records an album's worth of drum tracks at home in New Jersey, ships them off to Dodge in California, and the latter fits musical bits to the beats. And as with most releases from Ipecac, good old noise plays a major ingredient in the proceedings. But Dodge throws a few curveballs at you, including the reappearance of xylophone throughout. Expectedly, screams, death metal guitar riffs, and insanely precise drumming from Witte are offered in healthy helpings. Similar to Fantômas, the tunes blend into one another, but there certainly are a lot of them -- 23 tracks are featured in total. Noise freaks rejoice, because East West Blast Test is back in business. ~ Greg Prato, All Music Guide