Hailing from Japan, The Mad Capsule Markets have been making music that has went relatively unheard by North American audiences for the better part of a decade. However, it looks as though this now may change, as with this, their ninth outing they are finally able to make their stateside debut. Sounding like the offspring of Mindless Self Indulgence, Pitchshifter and Atari Teenage Riot, along with an occasional splash of pop punk, their music is progressive and disorienting and probably as close to being thrown into an electronic themed hell as one can get.

Led by the often unintelligible vocals of Kyono, which range everywhere from ferocious screams and gruff metal chants to playful hums, the music shoots off with the velocity of a bullet, drenching the listener with waves of distorted gritty guitar and electronic lo-fi meets ambient tweaking that is almost always solidified by thick and aggressive basslines. Rife with enveloping swirls of searing noise that feverishly clash against each other, band drummer/programmer Motokatsu Miyagami skillfully anchors it all in place with blasts of violently charged and relentlessly paced percussion which alternates between excessively outlandish programming and natural kit based excursions.

There is little the band choose not to incorporate on this album and as a result, the material contained on it morphs into a pulsing voyage through highly foreign territory. Abrasive, yet energetic, they try their hand at rap metal, modern metal, punk, pop, electronica, jungle and various other genres, ambitiously injecting them all with a ludicrously rapid paced electronic aspect that comes about as close to being a cathartic audio overdose as an album can get. Its raw and dynamic, full of contrasting aspects and though it may not always work, it definitely tests peoples limits, while remaining surprisingly song structure based. Unfortunately though, due to the vocals consistently being nearly impossible to understand, the bulk of stereotypically narrow minded North American audiences will probably ignore what this trio has to offer; But for those who are able to put aside such qualms and concentrate on the music, there is definitely a lot here to take in. With a mature confidence and enough electronically programmed intensity to fry a circuit board into a molten mess, its a safe bet to say that the music The Mad Capsule Markets create is at least ten times more innovative and ballsy than anything the diluted modern metal scene is producing at present, which overall, makes it a fairly worthwhile venture to do a little international shopping when these 3 are involved.