LOUD

Doctor Nerve is a project from guitarist and composer Nick Didkovsky who originally formed a large group of instrumentalists to perform his quirky compositions. The band itself has been around since the 80s. The music has been described as a hybrid of jazz, metal, avant-prog, but especially as a combination of all three.

"Loud" is a good way to describe the EP "Loud" from Doctor Nerve. It is a combination of heavy guitar and bass played against a cacophony of brass and wind instruments. The rhythm sections are pretty repetitive, but the guitar and brass is all mostly improvised, switching from normal to dissonant without warning, instruments played normally and then being abused crazily. It definitely takes a few listens for the sound to penetrate, and at first might seem like a bunch of chaos, but with practice, the individual tracks start to make a bit of sense.

What you have here is almost 18 minutes of music, 4 tracks that vary from 3 - 6 minutes and then 2 short tracks that barely make it to 10 seconds. It ends up being over rather quickly, so no one is really subjected to it for very long, at least that is how it looks on the surface. However, once you have downloaded the EP, you will notice that there are 11 bonus tracks included. Now, these bonus tracks are really just alternative versions of the tracks you have already heard, but the biggest difference is that the guitar solos are changed from the "normal" versions. That is because the solos are done by various guest artists like Mike Keneally, Shawn Persinger, Matt Hollenberg and others. There are also a few other tracks done solely by Doctor Nerve. It's pretty much more of the same. So, you can pretty much decide how much of it you can take.

While it is true that the music has a lot going on, it is quite angular and without a lot of dynamic, just loud and complex. As such, it can be hard to listen to, but with an album in EP format, that might just be the best way to listen to it. But with the bonus tracks, the band also shows how many different ways the music can be interpreted. Unfortunately, though it all sounds good on paper and in theory, it is not easy to listen to. The EP also doesn't really prove a lot for the music either. For that reason, this ends up being a 3 star release.