As heavy as the Heavy Metal that we listen to can be, it’s pretty undisputable that the actual heaviest music out there comes from the Noise scene, where artists such as Merzbow regularly release albums that will crush the soul and ears of most Metalheads that dare listen. To the mainstream, underground music is all indistinguishable; a painful racket is a painful racket, whatever you call it. Yet deep down there are more layers than your casual observer would have thought possible. One of these layers is a style generally known as Breakcore, yet which I’ve renamed as above for the purposes of this review. Venetian Snares, the one-man musical project of Aaron Funk, has been in some form of existence for the last eleven years, during which time everything from Classical music (on 2005’s Rossz csillag alatt született) to Jazz and Blues (on the same year’s Meathole). Latest album Detrimentalist takes its cues from the 90s; specifically, Drum N’Bass and Ragga music as well as video game bleeps and whistles that sound as if they could be from the period. The whole album is rather uncannily like a recent Dragonforce album remixed and distorted, although Power Metal fans who come to complain that they bought this under false pretences should only blame themselves.

Detrimentalist, you see, is a hard album to listen to. Imagine the three best Metal drummers that you can think of all playing different beats at once, with Devin Townsend and Mike Patton in the background in charge of effects, and you get something close to this. Of course, the sampled vocals on tracks like Gentlemen and Eurocore MVP will put a few listeners off, especially given the Rap and Reggae links. Taking the electronic elements on their own, however, it’s amazing how catchy this becomes after you’ve gotten over the sheer headache-inducing complexity (seriously, don’t make the mistake I did and listen to this with a hangover) of the first listen. Beeps and whistles, dings and donks, yells and bellows, coming at you from all directions. Yet as you get used to the style, and begin to see the overall impact and hidden melodies of the music rather than listening to each note individually, Detrimentalist takes on an almost progressive sense of melody that rewards listeners with patience. Of course, being used to the blasting and grunting of long-haired men, we’re at more of an advantage than your average teenybopper, yet this will still take time to work its digital magic on you.

Standout tracks really depend on your taste, but most listeners should like the Classically-enhanced nine-minute finale of Miss Balaton, taking an atmospheric trawl that should delight the Black Metallers out there used to the more Avant-Garde stylings of that genre’s elite. The interestingly odd voiceover on Koonut-Kaliffee helps add to that track’s spacey atmosphere, too. Given how most of Detrimentalist is akin to being aurally raped by robots, there should be more than enough to make even those that hate this sort of music admit it has depth.