Blind Idiot God - Cyclotron (1992) [Math Rock] [Noise Rock] [Post-hardcore] [Dub]

For its third and apparently final recording, the high-voltage instrumental power trio Blind Idiot God joined John Zorn’s Avant label, though retaining Bill Laswell as producer and changing the band’s overall sound and direction not a bit. One might have expected that Zorn, who guested on Blind Idiot God’s previous release, could have steered the trio toward more overtly experimental ground, but the band instead continued with its unique mixture of anthemic hardcore explosions and spacy, sensual, dub-influenced ruminations. Guitarist Andy Hawkins, who had begun to issue more exploratory solo pieces on his own, does leave himself a few opportunities for some ventures into feedback and looping that had been absent on earlier efforts. There are also a few more tastes of Parliament/Funkadelic-inspired groove, presumably as a result of the band’s successful cover of a George Clinton piece on its prior album. But essentially, Cyclotron is a continuation of the ideas set forth on Blind Idiot God’s initial self-titled release, and those ideas, once so bracing, were beginning to lose some luster five years down the road. While still head and shoulders over most thrash-influenced “math rock,“ it was becoming clear that this particular well was beginning to show signs of dryness and that perhaps the band members would be advised to think of drilling elsewhere. For fans of the first two albums, this is still certainly a necessary record to own, and one wonders what else may have been produced by these three immensely talented musicians working as a unit but, at the same time, more records retracing the same, or similar, ground may have been overkill. (review by Brian Olewnick on )