CoC : Incapacitants - Asset Without Liability : Review

Incapacitants - _Asset Without Liability_
(Bulb, 1997)
by: Andrew Lewandowski (9 out of 10)

Recently, the Japanese noise scene has grown stagnant, despite once deserving praise as the only scene producing music relevant to our nihilistic, self-destructive, post-modern society. In the dying mecca of noise, most Japanese artists have failed to explore the possibilities of anti-music; only sonic homogeneity resounds. Even the exalted king of noise, Masami Akita of Merzbow, began to simply rehash the accepted Merzbow sound on each of his many recent releases. Although never drastically diverging from the noise patterns of their earlier releases, the Incapacitants are one of the only noise artists to produce a continuous string of enticing albums. _AWL_ continues this trend; once again, the patented Incapacitants layered wall of static and screeches resonates throughout, yet the wall has been cultivated a bit. Now, the Incapacitants have become a bit more explicitly violent; the high-pitched background screeches of the past are supplemented by more obese and schizophrenic power electronics. The result is akin to the consumption of 110,000 Tokyo businessman by an unyielding earthquake (as opposed to a few older Incapacitants releases, in which death was achieved by insinuation), and produces one of the more confrontational, yet still entertaining throughout, noise albums of the past year.

(article published 7/6/1997)