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The Flying Luttenbachers – Terror Iridescence (GOD Records/uG Explore) – Did we or did we not? Appears not? Could have sworn we did, we nearly let this one pass us by, keeping up with Weasel Walter is never easy! Terror Iridescence is a 43 minute two track Flying Luttenbachers album that came out earlier this year, seems in all the storms Weasel has been kicking up with his many interwoven projects this year, as much of a fan as I am, I hadn’t even listened to this one, well not until today. Love the intriguing way this one starts, love the way the first of the two twenty minute tracks, Meredyth Herold, lulls you in, the way it asks if you sitting comfortably? Are you ready? Are you prepared? Love the way Meredyth Herold is all delicate and almost seductively reassuring – well as seductive and reassuring as those Flying Luttenbachers could ever get. The slow drip, the almost water-torture drops of anticipation, you know something is coming, that that thing that The Flying Luttenbachers do is going to happen any moment now. Any moment now? Surely? They’ve been playing with us for six minutes or so already, where is it? Things are tense! Almost ten minutes in now and still that water dripping on your forehead, that and the the clanks and the honks, the guitar tease, the edge, the threat, Where is it? They’re not going to do it are they? Where the storm of noise? Where’s the explosion? And this is the thing about the glorious beast that is The Flying Luttenbachers in all their forms, you never ever quite know! I mean you know things are going to be good, you know it will be a challenge, that things are going to be intense, that they’re going to be thrilling, but you never do ever quite know and the important thing here is that you’re only going to listen to this album for the first time once so make sure you clear the decks, make sure you’re in the zone, this only happens once!  Second time around you’re going to have some kind of idea where they’re taking you, first time, you’re still waiting for that sucker punch, you’re still slightly nervous about the false sense of security they’ve almost lulled you into.

Twelve minutes into the first piece of music on this album and we’re still waiting for the violent onslaught, the surely inevitable onslaught of “brutal prog” (as they like to put it). A quarter of an hour in now and they’re still toying with us, playing with us like a cat with a mouse, a weasel with with a spider,  and this is why I love this band! After all these years, all those albums, all those gigs and live recordings, you still never you quite know where they’re going, you still don’t feel safe when left in a room with them, you still never quite know what the hell is going to happen. The tension is massive now, fifteen minutes in to Meredyth Herold  and your finally starting to think that maybe it isn’t going to erupt, that this tension they’ve built up is actually the main course, that those elastic bands they’ve cleverly wound up so tightly are never going to actually break. This is brilliant! Damn, I’m probably spoiling it for you – listen to that guitar scream, listen to that tension, the real art of noise – I really should have said at the start of this (attempt at a) review, I should have said do not read this review, until you’ve actually played the first track all the way through. Just listen to the way they’re stretching this out, the way they’re obviously not going to be obvious about any of it, the way they can still surprise and take you the distance without ever letting you breathe that easily. And no, they didn’t erupt, they never actually did, they just didn’t, brilliant! Twenty-one minutes of tension, of noise, of brutally playing with us, twenty one minutes of building on their legacy without actually ever getting brutal – brilliant!  

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And the second track? Well hey, we can’t spoil all of it, you’ll have to go buy a copy… For those who, like me, haven’t been paying full attention, and let’s be honest here, it isn’t easy keeping up with Weasel Walter and the various branches of The Flying Luttenbachers and everything else he does. if we have it right, these days there’s a New York version of the Luttenbachers, there’s a Chicago version, there’s a European version and Terror Iridescence is “the 4th full length release by the latter-day, New York City based reincarnation of the seminal Punk Jazz/No Wave/Brutal Prog unit The Flying Luttenbachers, and the 17th album since 1992. After all of this, long time fans tend to expect notable creative twists to be pulled by the band with each release, and this one will not disappoint. This time around, our heroes have issued forth a boldly abstract haunted-house salvo of dizzying surrealism, loaded with exceptionally bizarre sonic tangents. After 2021’s blistering and compositionally dense “Negative Infinity”, FLs leader Weasel Walter decided to take another tack altogether: Instead of making another rehearsal intensive album of tightly scripted action, Terror Iridescence was improvised completely on the spot at Colin Marston’s Menegroth studio in Queens,…”

Order the album here or the vinyl version here