Although San Francisco improv duo the Yellow Swans deserves the "electro-noise" label often used to describe it, the imaginative CD-Rs, tapes and vinyl the pair has released since forming 3 years ago isn't limited to long-form teakettle skree. The Swans' palette encompasses gnawing, shortwave mayhem; dental-drill screech studded with coughing amps; guitars made to howl like broken sector alarms; and interstellar throb-'n'-hiss. But on
Bring the Neon War Home, Pete Swanson and Gabriel Mindel Saloman allow their music a 3-D fullness and -- gasp! -- pop accessibility for the first time. "Police Eternity" rages and raves like your favorite Rob Zombie song on brown acid. "High on the Mountain of Love" excavates whole canyons of golden, unearthly ringing. "Neon War" sounds like one, its tinny club beats underpinning constellations of synth tones that bleed, ricochet and pulse before the song goes on the prowl. It's the stuff of pure delirium.
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