Avant, progged out, psych’, helicopter grind -- Tusk’s aural barrage has been categorized with some random appellations. Truth of the matter is, the more out-there the genre description, the more obvious this fact: It’s fucking out there. Amidst surgically precise blasts, frenzied vocals and fret board savagery to make devout fans of all matters of harshness raise a horned-hand salute, you’ll find a willingness to experiment: sitar, slide guitar, mandolin, swirling keyboard passages.

Basically, they’re to bedrooms in Chicago suburbs what Lightning Bolt and Arab on Radar are to Providence, R.I. Get it? No? Try this on for size: It’s Discordance Axis by way of Yes’ "Close to the Edge" or a German-schooled Acme maelstrom played by fans of This Heat and Don Caballero. And a singer who professes his lyrical "chaos bordering on collapse" owes a debt of gratitude to Tom Waits, though he sounds more like a strangled banshee or the Germs’ Darby Crash.

Tusk formed in the summer of ’98. In 2001 they unleashed their first record, a split with Hewhocorrupts, which apparently "sold well in Japan" and garnered them the honor of being described by several German distros as "completely crazy." With Black Man, White Man, Dead Man, they toured in summer ‘01, supporting said record -- impairing hearing and imposing structural damage in Midwest and East Coast basements.

Armed with a new singer -- sailor by day, inconspicuous madman by night -- Tusk recorded this first full length (9 songs) in March 2002 with Greg Norman, who engineers at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio. The CD is on Hewhocorrupts Inc.; the vinyl is soon to come from elsewhere. Tusk toured the Midwest and West Coast last summer with Hewhocorrupts and La Mantra De Fhiqria, both respected Chicago luminaries, in their respective frenzied metal and screamo niches.

Live in your town? Expect 15 minutes of pent-up nervous tension let loose by way of broken mikes, Lombardo fills, tossed monitors, flailing mike stands aimed at the bass player’s knees, coyote yelps and shit fits.

Current members are in Pelican (Hydra Head Records) and previously did time in Hinckley, Disembodied and Long Live Nothing.