The Devil Isn't Red

Album Review

No question about it: Hella's stuttering instrumental jabber is taxing on the ears. But it's worse for the brain, which can't use conventional means to suss out what's so appealing about Spencer Seim and Zach Hill's noisy sputter. "Top Twenty Notes"' building blocks sound familiar enough that they might actually be culled from some chart-topping nugget; however, delivered in fast forward, the song becomes a blur of not quite discernible information, like attempting to read and comprehend sped-up TV show credits. "You DJ Parents" returns Hella to their occasional electronic influence, or rather interference, since the track seems to be assembled from bytes out of jammed radio broadcasts and hijacked video-game consoles. The communication between Seim's finger-flying, trebly electric guitar and Hill's tom-spattering percussion style is still Hella's main method of destruction, and Devil Isn't Red kicks off with a string of cacophonous tunes to recall Hold Your Horse Is's best, most blurting moments. Sometimes, noise rock or avant-garde players focus on feedback and atonality to get their points across, skipping erratically on the line between effective and ridiculously jarring. Hella's work is unquestionably for the niche (which niche is unclear, but fans of, say, Puddle of Mudd need not apply), but Devil Isn't Red delivers its instrumental drubbings with dollops of disarming humor. Song title winner: "Welcome to the Jungle Baby, You're Gonna Live." The duo seems grounded not in making horrid noise to simply make it, or to please the beard-strokers, but instead cut and paste a unique yet weirdly accessible noise out of ostensibly classifiable rock & roll bits. You can hear the snipped beginnings and ends of classic rock riffs over the steel drum (?) clatter of "Brown Medal 2003"; difference is, their middles have been removed, replaced with random electronic chatter, and re-jiggered to become some other beginning's end. Fans of Trans Am or even Deerhoof should get plenty of yuks out of Devil Isn't Red and Hella's frenetic, seemingly multilimbed lather. It's a challenging mess, but one with uncommon rewards.