The second disc of
Bill Laswell and
Buckethead's project
Praxis is much less of a band effort and much heavier in tone.
Laswell calls in some of his associates for various tracks, which makes this more a revolving-door project. Many tracks are speed/thrash metal at their noisiest; most notable of these is "Rivet," which combines
Buckethead's ultra-heavy guitar riffs and shredding solos with sounds of shattered glass for an unbelievably aggressive experience. There's also a short dub interlude ("Iron Dub") and a hip-hop freakout with lots of scratching and high-pitched shrieks ("The Hook").
P-Funkers Bootsy Collins and
Bernie Worrell (both also featured on the first disc,
Transmutation) each contribute one lengthy track: "Deathstar," with
Bootsy's free-form bass explorations, and "Crossing," featuring
Bernie's psychedelic improvisation on a distorted Hammond organ. Also thrown into the mixture are Mick Harris (
Napalm Death,
Scorn) and
Yamatsuka Eye (
the Boredoms) screaming at the top of their lungs, plus
John Zorn on some shrill alto parts and game calls, the band
Blind Idiot God, and lots of frightening ambient sounds, noises, and samples out of Shinya Tsukamoto's cult movie Tetsuo: The Iron Man. All this adds to the overall assault on your senses. Though this is a great disc, it will put most beginners off by its mind-numbing intensity; many advanced listeners may also get lost. Only those who feel comfortable with aggressive noise may really enjoy this. There's been a particular CD reissue that should be avoided: all of the tracks are put into one lengthy CD track, with very low sound quality, and half of "Crossing" is missing. This reissue can be easily identified by looking at the back cover, which has the name of producer John T. Matarazzo listed; he was not credited on the first release. ~ Christian Genzel