Opaque Couchi

Opaque couche is supposedly the world's ugliest color, and it covers U.K. cigarette packs in order to deter smoking. It's also what adorns the cover of Meat Beat Manifesto's like-named full-length, and while it might signal that this is a difficult, unpleasant album, that isn't quite the case. Like its predecessor, 2018's Impossible Star, Opaque Couche is typical of MBM's brand of eclecticism, if nowhere near as angry or blown-out as their earlier albums. The album's best and most exciting tracks are the ones which play around with jungle, a style anticipated by early MBM tracks like "Radio Babylon." "Pin Drop" and "No Design" (both released on a limited pre-album 12") collide fast, choppy breakbeats with mangled vocal samples, yet there's still a sense of spaciousness to the tracks, rather than just a constant headrush. Elsewhere, there's the much calmer ambient techno of "Agelast" and "Bolinas," the latter balancing delicate acoustic guitar notes over a tricky, squishy beat. A bit of paranoia creeps into the steady, vocoder-heavy "Moving Pulse," as well as "CarrierFreq," which repeats the words "I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do" over a dragging thump. "Forced to Lie" is an airy, midtempo breakbeat track punctuated by more vocoders and a raspy, Beefheart-sounding sample ("They wreck minds, burn brains"). Also demonstrating the group's long-standing preoccupation with obscure, ear-catching samples is "Break Test," in which an unnamed narrator recalls rifling through Bob Dylan's trash and finding letters and pictures, until the singer/songwriter noticed what was happening and stopped throwing out anything of interest. Another jungle-ish track, "Critical Soul Vibrations," appears near the end of the release, and like the previous ones, it's so good that it makes you wish MBM would do an entire album in that style. As it stands, however, Opaque Couche is just as enjoyable as the majority of the group's other records. ~ Paul Simpson