The Dillinger Escape Plan
with Mike Patton
Irony Is a Dead Scene
(Epitaph)
****
On their latest EP, the Dillinger Escape Plan hand you the loaded weapon of 18 minutes of pure skull-fucking material, spray four rounds of industrial-thrash-hardcore violence, and disappear into the wake of their own smoking gun. DEP have never taken sides between metal and hardcore, and this release continues to elevate the band above the confines of both genres, with guest Mike Patton heightening the freak factor, as usual. Between squirming, Locust-like sci-fi theatrics, Patton's suave-psychopath vocals, and lightning strikes of electronic noise, DEP map out a catastrophic outlook on subjects as varied as Hollywood Squares and evil canines. Although all four songs are equally ferocious, the best thing on this disc has to be the band's cover of Aphex Twin's twisted track "Come to Daddy." In the hands of this perfectly deranged DEP/Patton pairing, Twin's classic becomes a delirious, demonic call to devour the innocent and then erupts into hellacious screaming and dark, fuzzy noise. JENNIFER MAERZ

DJ/Rupture
Minesweeper Suite
(Tigerbeat6)
***1/2
DJ/rupture's modus operandi in making a mix is not to grab a pile of records that easily flow together; it's mashing imploding breakbeats, Sade, commercial R&B, and modern African pop music. This sort of experimentation can be either brilliant or amateurish, and more often the latter. Making good on the promise of black intellectualism marrying electronic music, Minesweeper Suite is damn brilliant. The downfall of others who have tried similar projects is a lack of fluidity; this isn't homogenous, but has a macro-rhythm that allows for the mix to fall into near silence (I counted this twice during the disc), and yet it doesn't feel like a transition. It feels like you're in the middle of a piece of music. This is perhaps further evidence that /rupture's mix has gone beyond the mixtape and has entered the realm of pomo collage territory, or at least a bona fide album. ELLIOTT ADAMS

Birdy Num Num
The Courtship of Birdy Num NUm
(Self-Released)
***

I told my friend that DJ Gregarious had a band called Birdy Num Num, and she instantly said, "Oh, like in that Peter Sellers movie The Party?" What a hep chick! Yes, Gregarious T. Cline has named his band after what Sellers calls bird food in the aforementioned film. I don't know if it's because his music is tasty, crunchy, and light, but hey, if the flavor fits, taste it. Just look at Mr. Cline on the insert in his dandy uniform (though not Warhol-ish, mind you)--this guy owns the best Kinks records, and probably a little Badfinger, too. I doubt he's scared to rock to some '70s FM radio, either, since we're naming names. In other words, this is classic rock-pop without pretensions. Portland's own Supergrass. Num num=yum yum. JAMIE S. RICH