The tunes are still there—mostly. “Second Television” slashes its way into a jittery thicket of jangle, while the aptly named “ADD In Unison” ties a knot of loose noodling and jerky riffing. But in both cases, the songs are marred by pudding-like production—not to mention the increasingly superfluous tape manipulations of the group’s most recent member, Bob Weston. The fact that Weston, a lauded and experienced recording engineer, would let this muddy mess get released is startling. On “Semi-Pseudo-Sort-Of Plan” and “Sectionals In Mourning,” the vocals are submerged beneath wads of swirling, deadening murk. Instead of the wall of sound of the group’s heyday, listeners get a wet towel.
But the fault isn’t all in the production. “This Is Hi-Fi” relies on droning samples and whispers to impart that old Burma mystique, but it gets tedious quickly. The wah-pedal slovenliness of “Fell—>H2O” is entirely dispensable. The band’s melodies, once clipped and barking, are now allowed to meander and wheeze. The disc picks up in the second half, though; “Part The Sea” almost entirely overcomes its washed-out sonics with an electric urgency, and tracks like “7’s” and “What They Tell Me” strike a familiarly thrilling balance between harmony, howling, and haggard art-punk. Things end on a cheeky note with the sarcastically titled “Opener”—but the joke goes south fast. Almost entirely instrumental, it’s a hookless, passionless jam littered with a few listless shouts. The song ends with the chant, “Forget what you know / Forget what you know.” To a certain degree, Unsound makes it seem like Mission Of Burma has begun to do exactly that.
