It’s odd to think of the way in which different bands gain notoriety. Some do it with creepy stage shows that owe as much to shamanistic life as rock and roll while others just rave up a racket, only scarcely associate with the press and release foggy, dense forests of sound that not only deride melody, but find only little use for regular meter or time. No Neck Blues Band has been at it, this latter way, for the better part of fifteen years. And after ingratiating themselves to Sonic Youth as well as John Fahey at the end of his life, the purposefully distant group has, as of late, been on a tear, releasing a disc per year over the last half a decade.

With this new level of visibility not as a result of a reciprocally fawning relationship with media outlets, the detritus, fast coming from the group of seven supposed anonymous group members have made NNCK a common topic of discussion amongst the ranks of pseudo-intellectual internet geeks the globe over. Beginning by releasing live excursions on their own imprint – Sound at One – the No Neck Blues Band eventually branched out to Fahey’s Revenant as well as the Washington based 5 Rue Christian, which also played host to a few noisome Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice recordings. Over the last few years, though, Locust Music has become the group’s primary outlet. And with last year’s Clomeim garnering nothing other than positively drooling write ups in weeklies and on the internets, the seven member troupe has found it advantageous to release yet another disc - At 6 A.M. We Become the Police – amidst this atmosphere of positive vibes.

Much like any other improv group, each track outta the four extended offerings from NNCK, have some introductory passage that serve to allow the group to gain its footing before actually reaching back into whatever bag they draw from to wrench out these industrial sounding pieces of sonic seriousness. It’s during these initial sections that the disc really is relegated to some random throw off. And while there may have been some Teo Macero-esque editing going on here, a good portion of each of these tracks are just boring to wade through. After this bit of tantalizing noise hinting at what’s to come, the payoff is generally appreciable, but not necessarily worth the time put in getting to the meat of it.

The only offering here that doesn’t really suffer in this manner is the second cut, “NNCK 97.” With it’s aimlessly wandering violin and some enormous metallic bells summoning the cessation of the previous track, it begins all noodling with scarce percussion as a backing. It’s not a groove – as of yet – but the music here seems to be tied together even at this formative moment in a way that escapes most of the rest of the disc. There isn’t anything that resembles a traditional song structure on the entirety of At 6 A.M. We Become the Police and that’s because NNCK doesn’t work that way. While that means that various efforts to work in this vacuum of nonexistent form come off with varying degrees of success, there’s usually a few winners in there along with the polished turds.