BUREAU OF MUSICAL SUBVERSION OBSERVATION
File #458A-UH1S3
Re-classification: Hot Enough To Eventually Evaporate Urine
Period of surveillance: 6:30-9:00pm, March 15, 1998

Subject Title: Philosopher's Stone: Preparation

Non-verbal resonant classification range: "Ennh" to "Oooh" to "Unh?"

Comments:
Subject arrived at this agent's doorstep on Wednesday. Said agent will come clean, noting that he had already encountered said product at local record store and was not worried about its influence on our nation's youth. Reasons stated at the time were as follows:

a) The stark cover art (desolate, sepia-toned pictures of oddly shaped rocks)
b) The lack of immediate appeal in the sampling booth of said record store. The first two songs used tape loops of blurred guitars and pianos that essentially played on and on allowing for peculiar rhythms to emerge. This is an effect that had been most ably demonstrated by minimalist composer Steve Reich in the late 1960s, who performed the same feat using loops of human speech.
c) This agent observed pimply- faced teenagers ridiculing the pompous- sounding name.

Upon further reflection this agent would like to reclassify this subject from its former title, "Permanently Frozen Shit Sandwich," to the above suggested category for the following reasons:

a) The song "Places Where The Mind Dies" juxtaposes muddled ambient excursions with legitimately bone- curdling screams. This song was enough to bring this agent's cat from its catnip -induced stupor into something of a squealing frenzy.
b) The song "Where Regrets End" starts off sounding like an uninteresting atonal Flying Saucer Attack but eventually reveals a dark, murky beauty.
c) This agent's parents called while I was listening to the rest of the album and inquired about whether I was in a cult and if not, where was that weird sounding music coming from, and, for the love of God, was I turning into some kind of junky cult worshipper?

For the aforementioned reasons, I suggest we reclassify this material, in the unlikely event that it may threaten us and our nation- building goals. I await further instruction.

Reporting, BOMSO Agent 29.2

-Samir Khan