3 out of 5

Label: Acerbic Noise Development

Producer: Jeff McLeod

Gezoleen would appear to be a solo project for Mr. McLeod, the drums and bass sounding mostly programmed to me, but what a delightful smash of noise and chaos this one man creates over 8 tracks.  However, until the latter half of this mini-album, the songs don’t really shape up beyond their initial clatter, proving their point within the first few seconds.

Things start off chaotically with ‘Yawp,’ a minute-long orgasm of static and distorted vocals and beats and noise.  It’s an excellently jarring intro, recalling early Daughters work mixed with a bit more legit madness (the Daughters shtick sounding a bit more practiced whereas McLeod’s insanity just lets loose), but the transition from here to track two is indicative of the flow of the overall recording – in that you can’t really tell you’ve gone to another song.  It’s a bit less disorganized, a bit more understandable, but still a lot of bluster for almost two minutes.  Still jarring, and if you read it as a bridge from track 1 to track 3 it sort of makes sense, but we’re still dealing with the same concept without much variation for two songs.  Then ‘Oxidado’ pops on, stripping the sound down to a beat, and you start to feel this lil’ solo project, like it’s gonna be this pill of energy, springing around to different extremes of static…  While the title track has an appealing bass line, reminding me (just to keep the references going) of some of that Hubcap demo stuff that 54’40 or Fight! put out, it also doesn’t vary its step once it gets going.  So you get the point.  Around track 6, Mr. McLeod starts layering in some elements to the songs, building them up, dropping some extra aspect into the background, taking it away…  It doesn’t produce something that totally rescues the album from the odd tedium that nestles into the noise, but its a hint of what he could do if wings are stretched.

This works because its a short listen, but I look forward to listening to the fuller-length release from Gezoleen to see how things have progressed.