THE SAME AND THE OTHER

Recently, avant-garde music has seen an influence of bands playing uber-technical math/noise rock, and it's been absolutely thrilling. Hella is the biggest name in this vein by far (thanks to their masterpiece Hold Your Horse Is), but also noteworthy are Ahleuchatistas and Upsilon Acrux. In the case of Ahleuchatistas, The Same and the Other is their Hold Your Horse Is, a tremendous example of technical playing used to convey emotion (or, more accurately, the band's anger at the current political situation). Graced with a gorgeous cover showing crying Arab women (in traditional Islamic garb) with a fighter plane dropping bombs in the background, The Same and the Other is a scathing, wordless outcry against the war in Iraq.

Thankfully, the music is good enough that one need not agree with their cause in order to enjoy the music. Right from the opener, "Cracked Teeth" (a very apt, even literal, title), The Same and the Other is a no-holds-barred assault. Cascading drums, piercing, dissonant guitar, and off-kilter bass scamper from theme to theme, often running through ten or more each (two minute) song, never sticking to a groove longer than strictly necessary. The best example of this is "Imperceptibility", which is a three-minute barrage of seemingly every trick in Ahleuchatistas' repetoire. But there are twenty-five other minutes on The Same and the Other, and each one is equally as stunning as the three of "Imperceptibility", not to mention equally as harsh. And just when you've had enough.

.it's over. At a mere twenty-eight minutes, The Same and the Other is the perfect embodiment of concision. What other bands tell us in eighty minutes, Ahleuchatistas condense to thirty. It's a testament to how good they are that not only is no detail lost in shortening the length, but the clarity of their messages (both political and musical) overwhelmingly increases. This is one of the most essential modern avant-garde CDs, and Ahleuchatistas' crowning achievement so far. Of course it's not for everyone, but there's an easy test to see whether it's for you. When I listen to this CD on a good pair of headphones, it literally feels as if my skull is contracting beneath the weight and assault of the music. if that sounds appealing to you, what're you waiting for; get this immediately. If it doesn't, stay far, far away. For the masochistic, The Same and the other comes exuberantly recommended.

I feel this is the essence of this album, really. Ahleuchatistas went out to express their views on the Iraq war with this album. The music here make it pretty clear they were disgusted with this war and this album is pretty much in the anti-war genre, like the ones Bob Dylan & Co made during the Vietnam war. Same thing, different generations.

Were Bob Dylan was melodic, Ahleuchatistas express their views in instrumental, punk inspired dissonant pieces of music. The guitars are dissonant, the bass rumbles on beneath them and the drummer are hyper active all over the drum set. The attitude is more free jazz and punk than progressive rock or any coherent melody based forms of music. Ahleuchatistas presents their ideas (called "songs" here) and trash around with them for a while before moving on. There is no coherent melodies here and not breathing space. Just ideas thrown around. This demands a lot from the listener. A lot.

Although I like it's attitude, this album is sorely lacking in quality. Some ideas are good here, but most ideas are not that good. Hence, I cannot claim this album is a good album. But the band is surely onto something with their music and they deserve a lot of credit. But not for this album.

2 stars

I tend to enjoy the excursion, quick progression, sudden change elements that Ahleuchatistas predominantly works with so I am somewhat biased whilst stating my opinion, but this is a tremendous album and displays great talent from each of its three members. I am not in the least bit surprised to see this cd was released on the tzadik label as john zorn is quite eclectic in scooping up unheard of gems into his extensive repetoire. Onto the music!

At just under thirty minutes this album makes a statement, and does so in a very efficient manner. The music is very dissonant most of the time and can request a lot from the listener, but there is certainly its fair share of payoffs as well. In almost every track, the music will take an unexpected, yet interesting turn (in my opinion always for the better) which can keep the listener on their toes throughout the duration. This album just does not mess around, and is very exciting to listen to.

Each musician displays immense technical prowess, but does so in a way that compliments each other and has enough melody to make it seem like true art instead of someone grinding out scales to showboat. You can feel the emotions of the musicians permeating through the music and that, I believe, is a very powerful often times misunderstood feat.

This album never gets old for me, and I almost always listen to it all the way through because as I stated earlier it does such an amazing job of conveying the emotions through the music that just as soon as you feel like the album couldn't possibly sustain this amount of energy any longer, the album concludes and you walk away feeling fulfilled as a listener.

This music is not for beginners, and can be quite challenging at first. Fierce, aggressive, tight knit, energetic, emotional, dark with splashes of light. All of these words can be used to describe this effort from an extremely underrated outfit.

4.5 stars rounded up