Industrial drone and grind meets thudding beats and wayward bits of piano on Music for Prisoners. World of Metal and Rust (aka Ross Dabrowski) uses “samples collected from field recordings and random recordings made around [Portland]” as his sound sources, then grinds them into a fairly standard dark/industrial paste. The pieces are brief, sometimes blessedly so, but Dabrowski at least tries to do something different. Usually, that involves the piano, which tinkles and stumbles, a bit out of tune, and it’s often helped to limp along by percussion. For me, Music for Prisoners wears out its welcome in short order. It’s not deep or dark enough to hit me on a visceral level; I feel that I’m just standing and staring at it, waiting for something interesting to happen. Repetitive elements are often too much so. The dynamics seem to be lacking. To some degree I wonder if Dabrowski is standing in his own way by not giving himself room to stretch these things out and explore the real grit and depth of his ideas and sources. Listeners into dark, experimental work may want to take a listen.

Available at Bandcamp.