INHALER Chang (Saucer)
Inhaler lay claim to being the UK's top techno guitar pioneers, and "Chang", their second long player, serves up 19 examples of the genre in an agreeably short space of time. Sometimes sounding like Front Line Assembly with the attention span of a goldfish, they (or possibly he, as Dorset resident James Barnard writes, plays, produces, mixes and designs the whole kit caboodle, aside from some drum, bass and decks help here and there) throw in film samples, Trans Am-style distortion freakouts and the odd knowing wink of a lyric (for example "I like the "Venom"/I like the "Man-O-War"/Death to false metal" on "Metal Inferno"). But ultimately for me the most interesting thing about "Chang" is the track titles (the two-parted "Iommi", "340 kg Of Rock") and that's never a good sign. If you like noisy, shouty industrial metal with an edge, however, queue here.