Regler + Courtis Regel #13 [Noise Rock]

Mattin and Anders Bryngelsson are joined by Reynols' Anla Courtis on this fuzzed-out celebration of noise rock, their most furious exercise yet, burning down the genre to its embers, leaving a mess of distorted riffs, motorik rhythms and hypnotic, swirling feedback. Heavy as fuck!

Regler have already spent 12 volumes of their Regel series putting their grubby thumbprints on metal, techno, classical music, ambient and just about everything else you can think of, but it's here where they really hit their stride. They've roped in Argentinian original Courtis - co-founder of Reynols, no less - to assist, and it sounds as if they're truly relishing the opportunity to let loose. On the first side, a severe, almost hollow-sounding motorik beat provides the backbone, and the trio show their literacy with the sound by twisting blown-out riffs into fizzing, acidic fractals. If there's any low-end, it's swallowed whole by slashed amps and hoarse groans, but Mattin, Bryngelsson and Courtis offer us a breather, cutting to eerie, black hole rumbles at the 11-minute mark before raging towards relentless, searing feedback.

On the flip, the drums are eviscerated, leaving plenty of space for Regler + Courtis to push their gargling textures centre stage. Anyone familiar with Bryngelsson's tenure with Brainbombs is gonna be beaming at this one - it's a noise education, rubbing bubbling hotwired oscillators against strangulated axe screams and brickwall distortion. Even the feedback doesn't fully get a chance to flower until the third act, and when you can eventually make out the drums, they're drowned by razor-sharp, brittle nails-on-chalkboard groans and synthesized whirrs. Somehow, the trio keep building the intensity, the final few minutes sound as if they're physically burning through the speakers, foregrounding the kind of blistering, in-the-red grot that rarely makes it to wax these days.