I went $10,000 into the red and defaulted twice on my student loans for my anthropology degree, so I sure as shit am going to begin this review by pointing out the obvious significance of this band's name.

The Anasazi were the ancient forebears of the Native American Pueblo people, who dwelt in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. The Anasazi, or "Ancient Ones" as they were known in the Navajo tongue, famously disappeared 700 years ago, leaving behind cryptic ruins, scattered evidence of sophistication in astronomy and pottery and one of the most challenging archaeological puzzles in North America. No one knows where they came from or where they went.

There.

But what does that have to do with the band? Admittedly, not much. We know where the hardcore quartet came from: they sprung fully armed and armored from the foreheads of seminal cult Santa Cruz hardcore bands, Mohinder and Jenny Piccolo. Likewise, we can guess where they're going: one LP, a couple split seven-inches, and then scattered to the winds like spores of fungi to form other like-minded bands.

But let's stick to the present. The Anasazi are as unforgivable as they are unforgiving. Sonically, Measurement and Control is a terrible mythological beast. The sound is that of the deep, sonorous larynx of a Cthulhu-ish monster, steeped in bile and vitriol. A guttural excretion. It almost dares to walk the line of the unlistenable.

All the trappings of deep hardcore are present: tinny drums perched atop the mix, a treble wash, submerged vocals, and enough makeshift vicious distortion to wipe out a civilization are blendered with lethal centrifugal force. The result is a murky mess. Where it aims for the bottled fury of Jenny Piccolo, it sails wide right. When it reaches for the smarter, more original work of Mohinder, it falls short, dying by the hand of its own ambition.

The titles are wonderfully vivid: "Getting One's Message from His Formaldehyde and Autistic Animal Pieces," "Premeditated Amphetamine Killing Spree" and "Holy Crusade Against the Godless Forces of Intercellular Communism." However, the Anasazi clearly shot their creative wad coming up with these elephantine names, because the music itself remains uniformly and consistently bland, unfeeling, rote hardcore. The lyrics, meanwhile, are blunt and literal throughout: "At war with bureaucrats/ This land is our land/ Crush their buildings/ Torch their homes/ Burn their money/ We die for them no longer/ Kill 'em all." And then there's the more economical, "Sleep/ Eat/ Work/ Drone/ Life bled dry." Those are complete songs, by the way.

Measurement and Control opens with an eerie pump-organ feedback effect on "Xenophobic Dictators Commense [sic] the Hidden Agenda to Eradicate the Purveyors of the Holy Church." The song crescendos before purposefully imploding under its own awkward, bulky weight. The music halts abruptly to showcase bumped pickups, half-strummed chords, and other studio found-noise that sort of forms a segue into the next track.

The record almost finds its gimpy stride halfway through when the songs begin to congeal somewhat more effectively. "Mosquitoing Vector Control" displays the pest-like buzzing of its titular namesake. The band plays tighter on this song than anywhere else on the album, and to a certain degree, the musicianship carries through the frequent tempo and stylistic changes of the following two tracks. The disc ends with the tightly-wound, more traditional sounding hardcore burst, "Fortress." However, these apparent improvements are only relative to the earlier failures. Measured against their own forebears, as well as their contemporaries, the Anasazi leave a lot to be desired for the discerning hardcore fan.

Some of the best moments on Measurements and Control lie in the brief garnishes that preface half the songs. Kitschy and playful, they range from a space-synth nod or two to a snatch of newscast lead-in music. But these are neither intended to be taken seriously, nor developed beyond the short, diversionary preamble.

Measurement and Control is an aural plague of biblical proportions, imagery that would no doubt suit the Anasazi just fine, with all the dermatological festering-- blisters, boils, lesions, running sores-- they personify through their music. It's about as enjoyable as a pus-oozing, gangrenous wound.

-John Dark