Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain

Its cover art (a charcoal black photograph of a decomposed doorway) and title (PALMLESS PRAYER/MASS MURDER REFRAIN) posit this set as a collection of thrashy hardcore metal. Instead, this collaboration between Mono and World's End Girlfriend--two Japanese experimental acts that indulge in rock, electronic, and myriad other forms--plays like a summit meeting between Morton Feldman and the Kronos Quartet. Dark, intimate, and unsettling, the album's five tracks conjure a unique classical chamber music with the sounds of strings, piano, guitar, voice, and ambient noise. The results are eerily beautiful.