If Suffersystem leaves you feeling like you've just consumed five cups of extra-strong Turkish coffee, it's because of the density factor.

Density is the thing that makes the free jazz of Albert Ayler, Charles Gayle and late-period John Coltrane much more intense and abrasive than the AACM-style avant-garde jazz of Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton, and it's the thing that makes an alternative metal band like Monster Voodoo Machine even heavier than Judas Priest, Candlemass, Black Sabbath, Dio or King Diamond.

While those headbangers can be blistering and melodic at the same time, MVM is simply blistering.

As forceful as they are, Sabbath and Priest offer the listener some breathing space -- MVM, however, provides a consistently claustrophobic wall of noise.

Combining thrash metal with industrial noise and drawing on hip-hop and techno as well, Suffersystem goes for maximum claustrophobia, maximum heaviness and maximum density.

If you played Judas Priest's Painkiller (one of the band's heaviest albums) right after Suffersystem, you'd feel like you were starting to chill out and calm down a bit.

This excellent CD is as ferocious as it is inspired.