Pitchfork

Albert Einstein once said, "I do not know with what kinds of weapons the Third World War will be fought, but the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones."

Volcano the Bear's The One Burned Ma could serve as the soundtrack to Ken Burns' documentary of that final conflict. This is music for The Day After, what plays as you survey the damage, gaze out over the endless fields of corpses and debris, and ask with a tear in your eye, "Why?"

Though some of the music here is sad and cinematic, Volcano the Bear's ability to push things Beyond Thunderdome really comes from their sophisticated understanding of ugliness. The middle section of The One Burned Ma somehow reminds me of watching a river of raw sewage rush by; I am fascinated by the complexity of the brew, with all manner of decaying trash floating about, but it's just so much more pleasant to turn away, or, better yet, run. But if I were to give in to the instinct to avert my eyes, I'd miss the beauty that occasionally bobs to the surface, made so much more powerful by its proximity to the vile.

The One Burned Ma begins with a gorgeous passage of this order. "The Color of My Find" is an epic funeral dirge, with a droning harmonium playing against a gently swaying violin. As crashing glass intrudes, a lone electric guitar emerges and begins to pick out some forgotten folk melody. If it sounds like I'm describing a Godspeed You Black Emperor! album, I apologize, but there is indeed a marked similarity to the approach on this first track.

But sharp differences between the bands quickly appear. Volcano the Bear offer little hope for transcendence through the bulk of The One Burned Ma. The middle section in particular is unrelentingly harsh and strange, varying plenty in texture but never stepping out into the light. It's a droner's delight, as sound effects, voices and abused instruments weave in and out of the mix and tracks bleed darkly into one another. Occasionally, the heavy-handed manipulations become a bit much; "She Sang a Song of Norway," for example, rocks back and forth on two notes, with a distorted, taped voice played at \xBC speed. It's a bit of a cheesy effect, and similar strands of obviousness occasionally upset the flow of the record.

But a handful of fascinating elements tip the scales slightly in The One Burned Ma's favor. The sawing, atonal strings of "Ped is Feet" yield to the weird and great "Reah's Mort," which sounds like an accompaniment to an Elvin hunting party in Middle Earth. This track is one of several with a medieval feel linking it to the primitive jams of German psychedelic bands like Amon Düül and Ash Ra Tempel. More conventionally pretty is "Meisheishorses," which features an untreated voice singing a slow melody that seems pulled from every fourth syllable of a Gregorian chant.

The One Burned Ma is a rocky ride, and unfortunately one with several dull moments. But when the percolating electronics of the closing track, "Digging for Opera," finally fade into the distance, I only think of the abrasiveness and tedium of what came before in relation to the purity of this single beautiful sound.