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Fourteen suitably abrasive and demonic noise, noise-punk, and free-everything tracks burned onto a CD-R and packaged in a dog shit bag with a page of explanation/endorsement that includes the promise that the compilation will "detoxify your entire system, temporarily 'shocking' your nervous system into a position of imbecility and servitude." The eight artists represented here aren't necessarily local--it's a regionally agnostic mix--but find their common ground in Baltimore-based Human Conduct, a rough and raw little local label with a cassette-tape-heavy back catalog featuring more aural jagged edges than a glass recycling plant.

Of course, to virgin ears, much of this stuff is going to fall into the broad categories of "abuse" and "why?" With the exception of the instrumental pop dreamscape of M. Ciccarella and J. Zagers' "The Flight of the Feral Pigeon," The Human Conduct Detox Program isn't conceding anything to square tastes--which, certain ex-noise bands be damned, is how it should be. For example: gnashing punk brute the New Flesh collaborating with Philly's God Willing, one dude making caustic pure-electronic noise, on a song called "Who Wants Corn?"--some tormented screaming of the titular line, pummeling drums, and some jet engine sounding combination of guitar and electronics. The next song, "Egg Bag" by (D)(B)(H), sounds like a kitchen garbage can being emptied onto a sidewalk, for about a minute.

You get a break at the second to last track, "Nine Movements of the Arm," again by (D)(B)(H), which is acoustic sax/drums/bass free-jazz that makes you wish it had a couple more peers on the compilation, and the closer, "Hands Tied," by all-around awesome slop/noise-punk collective Gang Wizard, that sounds like a surf-punk track cooked in a microwave. It lets you down easy, which is a good thing--after 14 songs of this, you do start to feel a little imbecilic or caveman-ish, which, again, is sometimes how this stuff should be.

E-mail Michael Byrne