THE FANTASTIC FLYING FOELSCHS are a husband and wife duo who have placed themselves in the Stoner / Psychedelic Rock genre. The two write, record, and produce all their own work and release an average of two new releases a year. They are presenting "Trapped in the Clutch of the Master" and, honestly, I wish they hadn't.

I do not know what this is supposed to be, but it is not music. Music by definition produces beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion. This album may express some sort of emotion, though I'm not sure what, but that does not make it music. And what exactly qualifies this noise as Metal? Because you attempted to growl some angry sounding words in there? That is very insulting to an entire genre and entire body of people who live their lifestyle around it. Metal is hard, extreme, pushing it to the limits of talent and social acceptability. Not the limits of what torture the human ear can tolerate before bleeding starts. But, if we must, let's dive into this dumpster fire.

The first track immediately assaults your ears with some kind of ungodly sound. I'm not sure what instrument it is supposed to be or what the person is doing to it in order to make the poor thing sound that way, but it's pretty horrible. You're thinking, okay, this is some kind of weird intro thing. I've heard a million of these. But it just keeps going. And going. And then it distorts into some sickly sounding awful thing for a couple more minutes and back to the first horrible noise. I'm a little confused but willing to forgive what might just be some silliness on the band's part. I like silliness

But the next track doesn't seem to do a whole lot better. It just sounds like grinding noise and banging. There is no melody, no rhythm, no anything but noise. And a growing headache. I really don't even want to get into the vocals. But I will. They are of the same quality as the rest. Which is to say that at best they are amateur. I see that these people have practiced and learned to play. But practice is not a replacement for Talent. And, I'm sorry, but I hear no Talent here. I hear mild passion and dedication. But no Talent. Two and a half minutes into "A Breach in Reality," something almost like music happens. But it only lasts for a second and it's gone.

The last track, "Trapped in the Clutch of the Master" is as close to Music as this album comes. But even so it is still a heavy assault on the ears. I don't think anyone could make it through the entirety of this without a raging headache. And, I'm sorry, but I prefer my headaches to come from passionate headbanging, not audial assault.

Overall, I simply cannot recommend this album even though there was an effort involved. If you think otherwise, then yeah go for it. If not, grab an old favorite a go because this one is not