ADEBISI SHANK

This Is the Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank
(Sargent House)

Thousands of CDs and download links deluge The Stranger's music staff every year. The majority of these releases deserve obscurity, if not worse. But once in a great while, a totally unknown band will enter our consciousness and blast away—temporarily, at least—the jadedness that an onslaught of mediocrity can induce. Such is the case with the bafflingly named Adebisi Shank and their unfortunately titled second full-length. Straight out of Wexford, Ireland, Adebisi Shank explode out of the gate with "International Dreambeat," a triumphant charge of math rock that sounds like Battles jamming with Dan Deacon after downing mugs of mead. Much more excitement ensues over the following nine tracks, as the three savagely virtuosic dudes in Adebisi Shank grind out hyperkinetic corkscrews of noise rock you can spaz out to. Much of the album sounds like an unholy union of Holy Fuck and Hella, with a resulting tension between metronomic grooving and complex geekiness sending sparks everywhere. Overwhelming is their default mode, and This Is the Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank is pretty much ecstatic panic, nonstop. recommended