TTDTE, Danza IIII: The Alpha - The Omega

The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza: Danza IIII

Napalm Death released a double disc compilation of their greatest hits a few years back entitled “Noise for Music’s Sake.” Well, the Tennessean miscreants in The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza (TTDTE from here on out) have been creating noise for music’s sake over the past eight years to the best of their abilities and to the annoyance of many a parental unit. Danza IIII: The Alpha – The Omega sees the band take their hellish blend of noise, technical death, sound bytes, electronica and mayhem and prove that they were never a joke band despite one of the more hilarious monikers. Too bad it’s taken them this long and their final album to fully accomplish that task.

Danza IIII — now essentially a two piece with Josh Travis handling all instrumentation and Jesse Freeland on vokills — incorporates all of the elements that the band has become known for (see introductory paragraph above), but in a more complete and structured fashion. The inclusion of all things extreme from layered sound bytes to dissonant industrial elements to frenzied rhythmic shifts pepper the band’s final full-length, leaving you not only harder of hearing but ready to hit “play” once again after all is said and done.

The mosh-tastic riffs and growling vocals of album opener, “Behind Those Eyes,” is more than enough to get your head whipping around as off-kilter timing, technical leads and industrial noise fill the air. As evident toward the latter half of the song, TTDTE have incorporated moments of respite throughout the album in the form atmospheric passages of ambient noise and drone. But have no fear for every moment of solitude, there are some seriously furious eruptions of marshal drums, squelching guitars and vocal mayhem, as seen in “You Won’t” and “Canadian Bacon.” This is certainly the most varied of the band’s releases as there are a ton of ambient passages between the storms that, perhaps on earlier releases, may have been cut from the editing room, but since this is their swan song, any thing goes — and does.

The best song, I think, on the album would be the title track, “The Alpha and Omega.” The track features a couple of guests in the form of Alex Erian (Obey the Brave) and Phil Bozeman (Whitechapel). The duo’s presence adds some depth to the vocals as they growl and bark along with one another over ambient noise and churning guitars. It’s a solid track and one that has a great deal of variety weaving in and out of it’s duration.

All in all, Danza IIII is probably the band’s most complete and most varied release to date. There’s a great deal of mayhem going on throughout its near 55 minute run time. It’s the band’s opportunity to do what they want while getting a few things of their chests and boy do they.