One fundamental shortcoming of making music that can be described as “noise” or “noise rock” is an inevitable dearth of ideas, a precipitous drop occurring shortly after the initial excitement that comes with being as aggressive and violent as possible. It takes a truly smart and adventurous noise band to carefully rein it in, to settle into modes and write tense, memorable lines. At this point, the question becomes one of balance: how to organize those memorable moments out of chaotic and corrosive sounds without fully surrendering the abandon that legitimizes noise? In short, how does one keep an audience listening without losing that first sociopathic instinct to offend and frighten?

AFCGT answer this question by building a recognizable house that’s secretly teeming with vicious pests. That is, there are predominating patterns for the listener to follow, devices like riffs and breakdowns and consistent tempos, all familiar. But the edges around these more conventional focal points are frayed, spidery distortions, unnerving and alien. Most songs on this self-titled record keep a persistent drum pattern throughout; as such, you won’t find yourself getting lost in massaging barrages of noise so much as hypnotized by the static beat and disoriented with respect to your surroundings. Put this album in your headphones while going for a walk, and everything you see will have a decidedly more sinister look to it. The sensation is very much like that recognizable house: these are familiar grounds with something very terrible and unseen underneath.

Guitars are responsible for that paranoia. Three of them and a bass, to be exact. Half the time, though, it’s nearly impossible to tell what combination of effects could turn a guitar tone into the noises felt here, or if what you’re hearing is even a guitar anymore. Things that might be samples peek out of cracks in the foundation, and what could be human voices scuttle across the floorboards. Against the unchanging rhythmic backdrop, it’s easy to stop paying close attention to what and where these intruders are. It will serve perfectly fine to listen passively, losing all sense of time and place.  But the reward of this album comes in close listening over multiple repetitions. Finding all those elusive sounds (the scope and variety exhibited here is truly impressive), appreciating the minor individual moments as well as the cumulative effect, and even stumbling upon the occasional hidden or deflected riff are the things that make a good listening experience better.

This isn’t to say AFCGT are just getting lucky with gibberish. Opening the album, “Black Mark” and “Two-Legged Dog” are lumbering rock songs with unchanging and dominating guitar lines. The latter track eventually opts to submerge that principal part underneath increasingly loud swaths of more guitar over the course of its 10 minutes. “New Punk 27″ and “New Punk” throw styles and tempos together with a particle accelerator, bridging the gap between each combination with assaults of noise. Every segment of the song has a completely distinct character without feeling out of place in the collection. Some degree of planning took place here: each noise-out has a cohesive sound, while seeming to retain that degree of recklessness and improvisation one comes to expect.

Strangely, this band is at their weirdest when they’re quiet. “Nacht,” features a deep-voiced man giving something of an incantation in a strange language while shy drums shuffle in the corner; it’s like an actual session with a hypnotist in the midst of all this hypnotizing music. “Reasonably Nautical” is appropriately named, denying the listener any pervasive rhythmic anchor and leaving them out on a sea of menacing noises. This song sounds something like contemporary ambient on bad acid, at least until it rips itself open at the halfway point, industrial screeches and clangs of metal spilling out. Closer “Slide 9″ is a demurely psychopathic affair, returning to that incessant percussive structure, underneath which countless creepy elements scratch at each other and vie for attention. This is music to be listened to in a cold, empty warehouse. Music for meat lockers. Even at their calmest, the band avoids ever letting things feel completely safe.

AFCGT is an album that’s easier to listen to than some of the more left-field products of the genre. At least in the sense that it gives you enough conventional musical landmarks so as not to feel completely lost in a blizzard of noise. Once inside, though, if you stay too long, you’ll realize that much more is going on in the periphery than the center suggests, that there are many unique embellishments to catch or ignore with each successive listen. It’s a means of holding on to that grating and terrible quality of noise rock while allowing audiences to walk away with some positive and distinct memory of what happened. AFCGT are not lazy musicians, which makes it incumbent upon us not to be lazy listeners, to remain engaged and on our toes, waiting with interest to hear what’s going to come next. On this record, the results are usually satisfying.

(Check out A Frames and Climax Golden Twins, the two bands that combined to form this acronym)