Last time I heard Escupemetralla it was for reviewing their excellent 'Poison Of Dead Sun In Your Brain Slowly Fading.' This one (released in December of 2019, before all this pandemic shit really began here) is a double album, the first titled (translated) 'I Wanna Be Esplendor Geometrico's Guitarist’ and the second, '25 Years of Peace, 2019 Remixes’. That's a lotta material here, and no doubt this review will be somewhat complicated. For a refresher (without the extended mythology), Escupemetralla is a duo out of Barcelona, Spain, formed in 1987 working primarily in experimental electronic sound, who sometimes call themselves Muhammad and Muhammad.

The opening track ("Macromassa") on CD1 didn't exactly thrill me. Beginning with a thunderstorm morphing into a religious sounding song with dulcet organ accompanying vocals in Spanish, I suppose this was lost on me as I couldn't understand the words. That was mercifully brief though as things took off on "Jet," a spiffy up-tempo space-electro number. It only gets crazier, noisier and more chaotic on "Tecib" which follows. "Rapoon" starts out all spacey experimental, but adds in a chugging industrial rhythm that get louder as it progresses virtually taking over the piece. Weird sounds with stray vocals on the brief "Javier Hernando" finding its way into another (different) interesting industrial rhythm amidst the noise. These guys can really come up with some interesting experimental rhythms, and another one is headed your way on "Anki Toner" along with squealing feedback, and the occasional (Spanish) vocal. Rawkus, raw, and invigorating. It only gets stranger after that; much stranger, like ingesting a designer hallucinogenic drug. So much so that outta nowhere, you won't be expecting the simplistic electronic ditty "Red Kite" sounding a lot like the Catalonian version of The Residents. Finally, the outro titled "Escupemetralla" is another catchy number (spoke-sung in Spanish, of course) with an intoxicating rhythm.

On to CD2 (25 Anos De Paz) and my impression is almost the exact opposite of what I thought of CD1. The first track, "Permutation" has this neat little off-kilter percussive rhythm running through it with barely audible whispered vocals and other cool elements. It's sort of like Yello for the null set. That I really liked; what follows...not so much. There are some nice rhythms and synth work but with very little variation over an extended time, which tends to sound like unimaginative techno. Vocals, when present, are indistinct, flat and unmemorable and the language doesn't help either. Mind you, these are remixes and I'm not a big remix fan, so having not heard the originals, that might have something to do with the way I feel about most of these tracks. Some of them are downright annoying. (Track 7 is like being swarmed by bees!) Undoubtedly the worst though is the next to last track (titled "Escupemetralla," the same as another track on this CD) which samples numerous classic rock bands thrown together in one big shitload of riffomania. Maybe there are some out there who might appreciate that, but I'd say they're few and far between. Things didn't get any better on the last track; not much more than an industrial loop repeating ad-infinitum; pointless and boring to the max.

So obviously I found CD1 pretty good, and CD2 a waste of time. I don't think my opinion would change if I listened to both 20 more times, which I won't. Only question is- who are those two old dudes pictured on the CDs and why are they there?