Microwaves 'Contagion Heuristic' album

In the anti-tradition of whitebread Bay Area thrash metal, the violent morass of New York no wave, and a familiarity with Ralph Records / THE RESIDENTS insanity, Microwaves draws from a palette that is somehow as wide as it seems limited. Spiked skronk-infested guitars spit tonality-impaired riffs like so much chaff from a surgically calibrated tree shredder, while a propulsive fretless bass assault is jammed through all manner of alien effects, often rendering it as more a bowel-rumbling presence than an actual instrument.
The percussive cyborg clatter and MICROWAVE's paranoid dual vocal attack serve to further blast MICROWAVES' dystopian thrash into the outer void. Features former 1985/CREATION IS CRUCIFIXION/CONELRAD/FATE OF ICARUS personnel.

REVIEW FROM DECIBEL MAGAZINE:
Electroshock therapy as the new noise rock. Pittsburgh trio Microwaves have two other albums to their credit—2OO2's System 2 and 2oo4's Attack Decay Sustain Release— but Contagion Heuristic flattens both in its first two tracks. And yet, curiously enough, this album never should've happened—the band technically broke up prior to Attack Decay's release, with members going on to Zombi and Don Caballero.

But with the addition of ex-Creation is Crucifixion member Adam MacGregor on bass, Microwaves sound legitimately reborn. They also sound deformed, twisted, overdriven, and unpredictable, with a sound that fuses late-period no wave (think the Flying Luttenbachers, minus the jazz chops) with classic hardcore negativity (e.g., Black Flag, Flipper) via testicular electrocution. For music like this to work, it needs an utterly shitty, treble-heavy tone, and that's what Contagion Heuristic has, with bass and guitar arcing in white-hot static blurs over drummer John Roman's frenzied, snare-and-cymbal-heavy drumming.

But there's also a very live sense of energy that defies 99 percent of every professionally recorded "extreme" album currently in existence. Even when the band sounds on the verge of collapse, you get the sense they're feeling it. 9 out of 10 rating.

REVIEW FROM PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER:
Not so with longstanding avant-metal sludgemongers Microwaves. Sure, they broke up publicly at least once, in mid-2004 (promises, promises), but now the group's releasing a new disc on the Crucial Blast label and undertaking a sizable tour.

Needless to say, with Contagion Heuristic, founding 'waves John Roman and Dave Kuzy are baaack, sailing the seas of glue this time with Adam McGregor (of Creation is Crucifixion and Conelrad) on the unholy laser bass. (Original bassist Steve Moore now plays in Zombi.) The 30-odd minutes of Heuristic are split into ten tracks of varying intensity and intent, from the grim to the goofball. Some sound like you fell asleep watching old Battlestar Galactica episodes while someone in the next room doused the entire membership of An Albatross in gasoline and dropped a match. "Eye Removal" taps a nightmarish paranoia before unleashing the sci-fi laser beams. Spacey and sludgy, this latest from the Microwaves tempts you to affix a tentative stoner-metal label.

Except there's no way I'd be able to listen to this while high. But then again I'm not, to use their phrase, a "slime aesthete," so if you want to, that's your problem. May you enjoy this sick 'n' awesome half-hour from these local vets.

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Tracklisting

Microwaves - Contagion Heuristic