Dissonance was indeed one of the first words that came to mind when I heard this for the first time. Breathing is Irrelevant is another complex monster of immense density from Willowtip. Here’s the summary for ya: Take Yattering, Meshuggah, Harakiri, and possibly Fear Factory’s absolute heaviest moments, genetically splice and breed them in a twisted lab experiment and you berth Ion Dissonance. The result is a musical mutation that somehow seems stronger than its multitude of parents. In terms of aggression there is no contest. ID’s Breathing keeps up w/ Meshuggah’s Chaosphere and actually taunts it in spots w/ moments of ridiculous technikillity and complexity. Not completely polymetric mind you, just off-the-fucking-wall cerebral blasters of riffs that take an eternity to absorb. Yattering has a contender for the crown of jazz-fuzed downtuned madness. “Binary, pt.2” just opens the door w/ crushing power chords only to turn into a soft jazz segment that is not only hilarious, it is misleading as to the content of the rest of the song. It’s just monster downtuned riff after riff, and all are fresh and thoroughly crushing. The “off-key” grind riffing is there. The rubbing combinations of notes that move up and down like a gopher on an open prairie, challenging you to no end and just plain insulting your intelligence by the time the album is done. ID don’t make a single mistake anywhere. The riffs are not repeated, nothing is recycled. Every song is just crazy as it gets brutal metal, mathematikill and unbelievably eerie in nature. “The Bud Dwyer Effect” is the epitome of devastation. Out of all the brutal songs I have heard, and trust me, I have heard many, this is the most powerful and well-crafted I have encountered. Just absolute manic starting and stopping truckfulls of the heaviest steel in disarrayed yet organized patterns. I’ve never said “Jesus Christ” louder or more frequently than I have w/ the many listens of this song. The drumwork goes from a standard beat supporting a few seconds of off-key craziness to an all out nuclear blast of extremely tight double-kick fury. You will need many listens to recognize how brilliantly these songs are put together. At first all I could use to help me distinguish song from song was the employment of the enormous chunky grooves ID use to anchor their songs to achieve immovably heavy status. But w/ attentive aural dissection you will find an endless feast for technikill metal cravers, as well as those searching for some of the most intense & powerful vox you can find in metal today. This is a HUGE debut of an album showcasing enormous power w/ precise attention to detail as well. With a good production that enhances the listening experience, I find this album inhabiting every cd player w/in a 100 ft. radius of where I happen to be. This is a band to watch. Ion Dissonance crushed my ass and will obliterate yours as well.