71 minutes, 1 second

Mentallo and the Fixer
No Rest for the Wicked (CD 2 of 2)

What the hell kind of name is "Mentallo and the Fixer" anyway? I used to wonder, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, my thirst for knowledge has been slaked. Turns out Mentallo is some sort of comic-book character, and the Fixer is a scientist who provides him with...stuff.

Come to think of it, I liked it better when I didn't know the answer. Damn you, Wikipedia! You ruin everything.

Truth is, I gave up on Mentallo (the band, not the comic-book dude) after 1997's Burnt Beyond Recognition. I'd always liked the dense and layered percussion tracks on the Dassing brothers' early material, but sometime around the release of Algorythum, in 1999, things changed. For one thing, Dwayne Dassing left the band, and suddenly it was just Mentallo. Or the Fixer. Or whichever Gary Dassing was supposed to be. And for another, the music started to suck. Badly. Especially the vocals.

So I haven't really kept up with the band lately, apart from listening to the occasional sound sample to confirm that my opinion of the post-Dwayne M&TF hadn't changed.

But lo and behold, Dwayne is apparently now back in the brotherly fold! The new disc is called Vengeance Is Mine.

And?

Sounds like things have gotten so bad that not even the Fixer can fix them. Mentallo still sucks.

Also today:

70:57 Die Form, Ad Infinitum
70:56 Death in June, Abandon Tracks!
70:56 Qntal, III: Tristan und Isolde
70:54 Electro Synthetic Rebellion, Distorted Visions
70:54 Manufactura, Precognitive Dissonance
70:52 Geneviève Pasquier, Virgin Pulses
70:48 Numina, Solace
70:48 Skinny Puppy, B-Sides Collect