If electronic music releases were judged solely upon their sonic density, Biomass’ Energy would be a fearsome, take-on-all-comers heavyweight contender. This is not a disc that wants you to listen to it; this is a disc that wants you to sit there while it pummels you into submission with relentless pulse-weapons of supercharged sound. Biomass (aka Walter James Douglas) deals in trance states–or, as he puts it, an “emotionally dynamic electrosonic energy field developed through psychedelic meditation in a dark immersive sound environment.” Like most trance, Energy derives it power from repetition. It’s techno with the amps turned up, a mind-numbing rush of tone and tempo. Problem is, it lacks variation. While that might be integral to the trance equation, it doesn’t make for an interesting listening after 10, 15 minutes. Douglas is at his most inventive in the first minute or so of “Phaseloc,” but then turns right back to his original formula. One interesting aspect of Energy is that each track grows successively longer, from two minutes to 22. To Douglas’ credit, his psychotropic intentions are fairly well realized here. The disc does bend your brain into a trancey space. I imagine that this stuff works far better cranked up in a sweat-humidified nightclub with lights strobing all around than it does when you’re just sitting and listening in headphones (which, it must be said, are a must). The power is here, and the slowly shifting dynamics. What’s not here is something to hold more than a cursory interest.

Available from CDBaby.