Fatal Flying Guilloteens - Quantum Fucking (2007)

Is it possible for a band to get crazier and more precise at the same time? Don't answer until you've heard Quantum Fucking, the third long-player from hot-wired Texas lunatics the Fatal Flying Guilloteens. While this band has always sounded edgy and more angular than a geometry textbook, on Quantum Fucking they've pushed their own formula even farther into the red; the high-tension guitar work by Brian McManus and Shawn Adolph locks in with striking clarity even while they explode like a string of firecrackers (think Duane Denison meets D. Boon), and the stop-on-a-dime exactitude of their playing is matched by drummer John Adams and bassist Roy Mata, though the rhythm section still bashes with the frenzied power of a meth addict with an air hammer as Mike Bonilla howls over the top. While melody takes a backseat to speed and serpentine twists and turns on Quantum Fucking, the dozen songs here display an unexpected degree of intelligence, and the band rocks with an understanding that there's something approaching dynamics to be founds in all those little stops and starts. This is frantic stuff, but the Guilloteens are clearly methodical beneath their madness, and this is easily their strongest, tightest, and most adventurous music to date, a frontal assault on complacency makes danger seem both fun and smart, a concept that sums up this band admirably well.