by Mark RichardsonHybrid Noisebloom is Merzbow at his most focused and relentless. There are no Dadaist tape pieces, no deconstructed prog rhythms, no nods to Sun Ra. The music is nothing more or less than brutal noise, all centered around Merzbow's horribly abused machines. In some respects, the album's consistency and focus are its undoing. There's not much to differentiate "Plasma Birds" and "The Imaginary Coversation of Blue," for example, beyond the creative titles. Both are comprised of unbroken pink and white noise run through filters and distortion pedals; neither has much to offer in terms of dynamic range or tension. "Mouse of Superconception" at least has moments of calm before the faux air-raid sirens and loads of static push the track completely into the red. Oddly, despite the abrasive nature of the music, there is something organic and familiar in the raw sound of electricity. It doesn't take much imagination to think of this album as an electronic parallel to natural phenomena like waterfalls and thunderstorms. Only Hybrid Noisebloom is the sound of a waterfall during a thunderstorm, with a massive earthquake shaking beneath. In other words, Merzbow all the way.