We've reached the point where I never know what to expect from the Norwegian duo of Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre. Blackened droneologic grindmetal? Voice Crack-style experimental collage? Digitally-birthed harsh noise holocausts? Evocative field recordings? All of this and more has appeared on past albums from Jazkamer, and where I once thought that the alternating spelling of their name might have been an indicator of where they would be taking us (Jazzkammer as avant-noise experimentation, Jazkamer as avant-metal destroyer and joined by members of Enslaved), this recent album from 2007 blows that notion out of the water. Yep, with that cheeky title and strange track titles ("A Bucket Of Mayo", "Not Half Bad To The Bone") and a gorgeous 6-panel gatefold package that depicts picturesque land-and-seascapes, I was thinking that this could be another foray into the noise/field recording hybrid that Lasse Marhaug worked with on his disc for Troniks last year. While there is a little of that at play here, this collection of soundscapes is much more diverse and multifaceted, and while there is certainly some VERY heavy moments in here, this is an entirely different listening experience from Jazkamer's previous Metal Music Machine.

The album opens with "God Damn This Ugly SOund", which begins with what sounds like a medical lecture dealing with the sounds of heart surgery but sped up slightly so that the speaker sounds a bit like a chipmunk, which then segues into recordings of a heart murmer that becomes louder and more distorted each time that the lecturer plays the recordings back, surrounded by the grit and hiss of a phonogragh needle trapped in the grooves of a medical instruction record, and finally at the end the heartbeat sounds become a distorted rhythmic pulse, wholly synthetic sounding and machinelike. Strange. Then comes "Blues For Sterling Hayden" which starts with a wailing feedback drone and subtle melodic shapes that shift and shimmer just out of view, which is gradually joined by a groaning guitar drone that becomes louder and louder and more distorted as the track progresses. It sounds slightly processed, and layered with feedback and electronic noise as it gows into a crushing jet-engine roar of Skullflower style feedback guitar. "The World Is Too Small" brings back those weird chipmunk vocals, this time muttering over a creepy warbling drone of electronic hornets buzzing and swarming to and fro in some black void, followed by one of the most beautiful Jazkamer peices I've ever heard, the five minute "Tentacles Of Broken Teeth", which drifts slowly through a twilight purple wash of emotive slide guitar and dreamy, fuzzy slow moving guitar feedback that swells into gorgeous moody drones that almost sound like an orchestra playing a requiem for some distant desert world. Whoa. I definitely was not expecting to hear Jazkamer produce anything like that, totally reminiscent of Stars Of The Lid. But then the serenity of that piece is torn apart by the abrupt appearance of "Not Half Bad To The Bone", a punishing blast of extreme evil NOISE, super dense and clotted, a chaotic wreck of ferocious hardcore punk warped by a malfunctioning cassette player thrashing away underneath an avalanche of bombastic classical music, severe contact-mic abuse that scrapes yer skull from the inside out, screeching to a halt at the end, picking itseld up and then launching into about a minute of meandering grindmetal practice tapes that have been spliced apart into total incomprehensible crunch.

"A Bucket Of Mayo" is another drifting wash of vinyl-groove crackle and hiss that flows over indiscernable voice recoridngs, which then moves into the title track that closes the album, another unbelievably beautiful dronescape like "Tentacles", but this time Jazkamer float out on their soft blurry feedback clouds for over sixteen minutes, as an simple but breathtaking melancholy melody drips out of thick synth tones and swirls into heavy doomdrone amp buzz and distorted sustained powerchords, everything melting together into a glacial graceful drone hymn floating in a sea of delay and reverb, equal parts Stars Of The Lid and Sunn O))) and dark country ambience, and just wait till the alien banjo notes start to plunk their way across the final dark half of this track.

This album is amazing. Somehowm it manages to resolve beautiful Kranky-style ambience with damaged noise rock, metallic drone and obtuse sound collage and come out on the other side as a soundtrack to a dissipating dream. While there are bits of The Size Of Texas... that fans of Jazkamer's previous works will recognize as being part of their sonic language, this is something entirely new from the Norse noisemakers. Highly recommended.