These trips to the dentist are getting awfully repetitive for me. I climb into the chair, open my mouth, and suddenly it's like the elevator scene from The Shining is playing on repeat at the base of my tongue. "You know, your gums are bleeding," says the doctor, as if I hadn't noticed. I know how I should reply: "Oh. Maybe I should floss more. Or maybe I should stop paying you to shred my flesh with little metal hooks!" Of course, as this statement would be addressed to the guy with the hooks, I tactfully keep quiet. The really annoying part, however, is that throughout the whole ordeal, the local lite music station is being piped into the room, as if a little Matchbox 20 is supposed to smooth things over between me and Doctor Pointy Things. If anything, I just wish he'd be a little more honest about what he's doing to my soft tissues.

Black Dice's Cold Hands is the sound of blood in your mouth. Take that with all of its attendant positive and negative connotations. This highly touted group of Brooklyn hardcore noise extremists, who've lately been drawing attention as a result of their confrontational, Suicide-esque live performances, sound on CD like 23 minutes of painful dentistry. What's weird is, I like it a bit more with every listen.

I was enamored with the title track from the start. Tones from what sounds like a troop of damaged music boxes ping-pong in stereo above a creepily gentle feedback buzz, and in the shadowy background you can just barely make out a vocalist doing something obscene with his uvula. It's an evocatively sinister little number, a little taste of the odd and inexplicable that sticks in your throat.

The next two tracks find the band regrettably exploring what I think must be their hardcore side. There's a vocalist doing some awfully angry yelping, at least. Although I'm kind of impressed by the force and the stamina of the screaming, it's treated with so much distortion and fuzz that it loses any emotional impact it might have had on me. "Smile Friends" buries the vocals under waves of cut-and-pasted feedback shards and arrhythmic drum thumping, while "The Raven" piles on (surprise!) more feedback and a shaky drumbeat melded to some weird, ascending humming noise. Maybe I'd have an easier time describing it if the drums didn't sound like cardboard boxes being whacked at with anesthetized cats. Perhaps these guys were just too foaming-at-the-mouth pissed off at the world to take the time to record their instruments properly. But whatever the case, the lo-fi approach is self-defeating, undermining the monolithic sound Black Dice seem to be shooting for.

The last track, "Birthstone," foregoes the vocals and the drums (except for some cymbal swells near the end) in favor of a pure feedback collage. It seems like every variety of the guitarist's best friend is represented here: warbling, unsteady noises; throbbing, metallic sounds; ear-drilling buzzes; high-pitched squeals; you name it, it's there. It sounds like an 11-minute version of Sonic Youth's "Freezer Burn"... except, of course, for the 11-minute part. At some point during that span, it becomes impossible to pay attention any longer, and the "music" just fades into the background.

This, of course, is death for any band that aspires to the level of audience antagonism that Black Dice seems to attempt. I felt that every listen to Cold Hands was intended to be a battle, and that I always ended up winning. It's not that confrontation of this level can't be captured on record-- I challenge you to listen to the recorded version of Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop" and come out of it with your ass unkicked-- but feedback has been done better before, and it will be done better in the future. Hopefully, it'll be done by these guys.

Cold Hands shows a lot of promise and little substance. It's a snapshot of a group attempting to get some sort of anti-music down on tape. I've got a few years left before I qualify for that dental degree (and, oh, you can be sure I'll be an evil dentist); by that time, I expect Black Dice will have produced some thing worthy of accompanying my cold, rusty drill. TASTE IT, PIGS! TASTE MY STEEL!!! HAHAHAH HAHAHAHA HHAHAA HAHHAHAH!!!

-Brendan Reid