Sweep the Leg Johnny haunts like a phobia. Whether through genetic disposition or aural conditioning, some listeners will find the Sto Cazzo! disc as nothing but pill for inducing headaches and grimaces. The prospect of listening to six long songs of sheer cacophony wrapped around complex jazz-rock fusion seems a bit analogous to tip-toeing along an altitudinous precipice. But there are those who laugh at cliffs and highwires like they're Mountain Dew commercials. If the melding of Jesus Lizard and Ornette Coleman sounds like serotonin and goosebumps to your central nervous system, Sweep the Leg Johnny belongs in your collection.

The debate between art and accessibility will volley eternally, and Sto Cazzo! makes a great shuttlecock for such arguments. Art easily sponges up pop culture, but it's harder to convince the public that the avant garde is edible. For example, Jasper Johns can assimilate the American flag into his statement, or merely make the imagine of the flag his statement. However, it would seem exponentially more difficult to have this nation salute a flag that looked like a Willem De Kooning. Claes Oldenburg can put a giant hamburger in a museum, but McDonald's is unlikely to batter McNuggets sculpted by Henry Moore or Picasso. And so on. So I won't spend time convincing verse-chorus-verse junkies the benefit of a Sweep the Leg Johnny record. And Sweep the Leg Johnny won't make many mixtapes from secret admirers. But despite the scraping guitars, atomic clock drumming, and bleating saxophone loops, Sweep the Leg Johnny still flat out rock. They ROCK in all capitals, which remains a rather primal, or even pop, pursuit.

Unfortunately, aside from the three tracks that rock, Sto Cazzo! carries a considerable bulk of that hard-to-swallow art. Track 2 is merely a Merzbow-like meltdown of the first track that sucks the opener's climax into a remixer's combine, spitting drums and distortion into helicopter chops. The last half of the record relies on maudlin signifiers like vibraphone and strings over clean guitar pickings before crescendoing into snapneck machinegun marches. The two lumbering tracks slowly swell and pop, but never actually lure in listeners with hooks or unexpected movements.

Yet when Sweep go to war, the recording tapes end up looking like Chechnya. Rubble and smoke rise from the stabbing guitar, harmonic shouts, and unrelenting bass. The rhythm section amazingly shifts speeds and direction like a harrier jet. The lyrical imagery is suitably morose and sanguine, if not a bit too heavy–handed with schlock gore. "Skin of birch's bark/ White flesh/ This graveyard/ This pool of melted red snow," Steve Sostak belts before saxophone explosions in "Bloodlines." The track crawls under the skin like metallic chiggers thanks to Chris Daly's high-end horror soundtrack hooks.

Sto Cazzo! offers a taxing listen. Despite the more orchestrated direction of the latter tracks, the first half feels like exercise. I would argue this strain is healthy for ears starving for original rock, but it would be foolish to openly recommend Sto Cazzo! for pop fans. Sweep the Leg Johnny approach albums like a jazz musician-- working with a handful of long, exploring tracks-- and approach your gut like Steve Albini. At this point, they seem rutted in their own advancements. The band displays humor in their name and packaging. "You just got your asses whupped by a bunch of goddam nerds," the CD tray mocks. If only the boys could sneak some of this light-hearted approach into their music, they'd really be staking claim to that ass of yours.

-Brent DiCrescenzo