insects awakenSinger Kim West's hyperactive screaming vocals, half playground chant and half psychiatric meltdown, hit you in the face from the first few seconds in. There is a garish cartoon-like quality to the music throughout, with rapid and unexpected changes in volume, aggression level and texture in evidence through out. Frenetic drum rhythms form the core of Death Sentence: Panda!'s sound with clarinet squeaks, fragments of flute, blasts of distortion, xylophone tinkles and electronic textures sprinkled throughout like particularly toxic-coloured cake decorations. Despite the abrasive first impressions, there are moments of melody and even a lushness of texture to be detected in the barrage of ideas presented here. The lengthly 'Village Host' ends in a long section of silence, in sharp contrast to the frenetic barrage of mostly-less-than-two-minute long songs that proceeds it. If you can imagine the High Places covering Napalm Death or a more self-consciously avant garde take on MIA's last album, you're getting close to the sound here. This is energetic, hard edged, magpie music that gets better with each listen. -- nick ilott.
:: Death Sentence: Panda! /Insects Awaken - Upset the Rhythm
