This disc was mailed to me a few months back and somehow it slipped through the cracks...it is somewhat of a scary thought but it looks like I'm slowly getting caught up with my CD review pile. The next big project is to move off of Blogger and over to a real .com site. I've gotten pretty fed up with the limitations of Blogger and this "No more than 2,000 labels" is the last straw.

Crushed Neocons is the debut CD from The Antikaroshi, who are a fairly new three-piece band hailing from Potsdam, Germany. It is hard to put a label on The Antikaroshi as their music sounds like the bastard child of King Crimson and Fugazi (and, somewhat sadly, it is significantly better than many of the recent King Crimson releases). The band shifts styles (while retaining their prog/art-rock core) across this disc and embrace elements of dub, electronica and indie-rock.

Musically, The Antikaroshi have a lot in common with the 80's line-up of King Crimson. Bassist Ntik starts the disc with some stand-out rolling bass lines that could give Tony Levin a run for his money. Thea lays in some guitar/keys that ranges between 'Adrian Belew-style' syncopation (which falls somewhere between "Elephant Talk" and Belew's work with the Talking Heads) and Robert Fripp's big crushing "Red"-style guitar riffs. Crushed Neocons is musically adventurous and one of the most exciting debut CDs that I've heard in a while.

While there is little doubt that The Antikaroshi aren't George Bush fans (in addition to the CD title, there is a picture on the cover of a man who looks suspiciously like Dick Cheney falling over and holding his heart), the emphasis of this disc is on the music. Guitarist/vocalist Thea has an urgent vocal delivery style that is similar to Ian MacKaye but, unlike Fugazi, the vocals are layered beneath the churning rhythms of the band which makes it difficult to discern any lyrical themes.

The Antikaroshi played their first live show two years ago today and hopefully they will make it over to the States one of these days. While waiting for the band 's US tour dates, you can check out five of the nine tracks from Crushed Neocons which are streaming on The Anikaroshi's MySpace page.