Prolapses, as my long- suffering Aunt Belle will attest, are the most painful way to poop your guts out. Prolapse, as band name, has certain connotations, then. But Prolapse aren't here to eviscerate your lower bowel-- they've come to fuck up your head.

Fronted by a sweetly vocalled English woman, Linda Steelyard, and the impossible- to- discern, ranting Scotsman, Mick Derrick, Prolapse offer up a tasty blend of Sonic Youth, the Fall, and Stereolab. Though Ghosts of Dead Aeroplanes, the band's fourth album, is less acerbic and rough- hewn than its predecessors, it's as excitingly disturbing an album as you're likely to find this year, especially if you're non- plussed with emo, or pissed off with clever, clever post-rock.

The opener, "Essence of Cessna," has, confoundlingly enough, Cocteau Twins touches to its guitar lines, underpinned by a very Cure-ish, Joy Division-y bassline. "Adiabatic" (don't fret, I had to look it up, too; it means "of or relating to a reversible thermodynamic process executed at constant entropy and occurring without loss or gain." This definition has fuck- all to do with the song, as far as I can tell. It's probably a concession to irritating math rock fans.) bears that signature chiggy- chuggy bass- and- drums action that Stereolab used until their heads went up Jim O' Rouke's 9/8 backside. The guitarist dusts off the top with his most accomplished Kevin Shields- inspired sheets of noise. The overall effect is as devastating as the next track is eerie and suspenseful.

The emaciated specter of Bauhaus looms over "Cylinders v12 Beats Cylinders 8." Derrick doesn't rant like a boozed- up Scottish Mark E. Smith on this one; he's the cat- torturing, "Child's Play"- watching stepbrother of Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat. Derrick snarls, "You have a septic tank in your mind," as the band lowrides Derrick's venom to Vitriol Centrale. And for the album's finale, Prolapse roll out "Planned Obsolescence," on which, after beginning with the niftiest of backbeats, Steelyard and Derrick alternate whispering, "I love you." What a droll comment on human relationships this "Planned Obsolescence" song is! But the joke would wear pretty thin if the band hadn't threaded the track through with spacey analog sounds recently retrieved from some kind of lunar magnetic anomaly.

Some records make you feel as though you're suffering rectal collapse. This one, safe to say, won't. But that's not to say that you'll get away, erm... scot-free either. Mental collapse, here y'come. Better go to the medicine cabinet and dig out that bottle of Thorazine you've been saving for just such an occasion.

-Paul Cooper