You can (legitimately) listen to the whole album at the appropriately-named agorapocalypse.com.

I think something is lost in their transition from absurdist drum machine HATEHATEHATE to a more band-like experience, particularly the expansion out to two and three minute long tracks. The drum programming is more like a drummer and less like an angry smear; it’s quite impressive as a simulation.

I’m partial to “Hung from the Rising Sun” myself but overall I’m not too enamored thus far. It’s sufficiently angry, but is it sufficiently vapid?

myspace.com/agoraphobicnb

In the world of absurdist comedic grindcore, there are really only two heavyweights – Anal Cunt (AC) and Agoraphobic Nosebleed (AN).

AC fans will dispute this, claiming the two acts are nothing like each other, but while it’s true that AN features drum machine workouts and – as far as I know – doesn’t have any jokey “heathen music” side projects, there’s a lot of similarities. Both are pointlessly offensive, proudly stupid and nearly self-parodying – i.e. they are the bands that sound like what people who don’t listen to “heavy” music think all metal sounds like.

If nothing else, I think we can all appreciate that.

But when it comes down to it there’s a quality issue at play. AN is stupid, but also amazing; AC is probably more offensive and more willing to joke about touchy subjects, but there’s really no comparison. Take “Machine Gun” off of Frozen Corpses Stuffed With Dope – the intro is someone dialing into a voicemail phone tree and doing a cookie monster growl into the message, which then morphs with a great tearing sound into the actual song. Total time? A minute and a half.

Stupidity + craftsmanship = greatness.

AN is a band that knows you don’t have a lot of time to listen to music, what with childcare and concerns about the economy, and works off of that concept to craft perfect 30 second bits of hateful stupidity. It’s tight, sharp and will lower your IQ for a nearly a half hour with thunderous blastbeats flanging together and lots of yelling.

Don’t be a rogue spear.