3 out of 5

Label: Level Plane Records

Produced by: Air Conditioning (?)

Amongst the noise scene, what caught me out about Air Conditioning – whose blast of distorted howls and splattered guitar and booming drums sound like you’re deposited inside the band’s namesake, the machinery blown up to stadium size – is how they maintain an absolutely terrifying dissonance… while also being quite structured? They are undoubtedly clatter, applying a Lightning Bolt-esque recording wash and reverb with the pummeling more of a hardcore stomp vs. Bolt’s punky thrash, buuuut you can track approximate songs, and sections of these songs, and relative melodies linking those sections. I’m not saying my mom listens to it, but it’s, like, toe-tapping noise. Pop noise.

Weakness’ 20-minute centerpiece, Baby With A Graphite Soft Spot / Smooth Branches, is that, at its bestest. Everything – vocals, guitars, drums – is deployed as a weapon, an assault, and yet it’s eminently listenable to on repeat, never not noisy while also having a sense of buildup. It starts loud and gets louder; then it gets quiet, and broken, letting a beat pound its way through concrete to a conclusion.

The minute long intro, Accusation, Denial, Denali, is the water-testing for this, just going for fury for its entire runtime, setting your ears to allow for the screeches and intensity. It works, as you’re prepped to be exhausted and then get Graphite’s comparatively slowburn approach.

But the balance teeters the other way on 15-minute closer Welcome To Seaworld / Championship Rings. While this starts off with an appealingly bizarre, off-kilter guitar noodle and snappy drumbeat, the way this is mixed kills, it forefronting the vocals in a way that just clashes (unappealingly) with the music, never allowing the track to settle into a vibe, or teeter over into something more chaotic. It just sounds… messy. And kinda sloppy. When the vocals drop out, the song gains some traction again, but they return (presumably when we transition to “Championship Rings,” and it’s the same mish-mashy effect for the final 8 or so minutes of the disc. It’s not a bad track, but it loses the aforementioned distinctions AC bring to the scene, and so is a kind of bummer way to close out the album.