Carrying on like demented school children strung out on crystal meth, the new untitled record by San Francisco's Double U inspires both fear and awkward admiration. Presented as 11 songs, it is a jarring, sometimes revelatory experience that defies every attempt at categorization.

The disc appears to rely more on instrumental music, although a smattering of garbled cackling noises, mashed piano playing, and dangerously cheesed- out keyboards percolate through the mix. Occasionally, the songs sound as if they could be theme music from an acid- damaged children's show where pre-teen Stereolab members are allowed to serve as the house band. A Tom Waits-ish character croaks along to tracks like "March to Valhalla" and "Emperor Jones"-- he sounds legitmately troubled.

Disc two features all the same tracks "demixed" by the Glands of External Secretion, and the result is totally surprising: Where there was once a basic drum beat, there's a drum beat run through enough reverb to make your head ache; where there was once a semblance of a song, there's a song where odd sounds are jarringly interspersed with the former source material. And that already tortured voice? Well, you can almost hear the soundwaves being scrunched against their will. The Double U disc was mad enough-- the Glands' mix leaves one searching for a new word to describe the necessary elevation in craziness.

Needless to say, this type of music is not for everyone-- People who don't take drugs probably just won't understand, and those who do will undoubtedly want more.

-Samir Khan