Loss

Loganville Georgia's Me and Him Call It Us blast listeners with fourteen tracks of mayhem and mass anarchy. Artfully combining the sounds of Reversal of Man, Tribes of Neurot, Daughters and Old Man Gloom together as one unique package, MAHCIU were definitely blazing a new path across the stale metalcore/emo/noise scene.

• Stickfigure Recordings

"Before guitarist / vocalist Blake Connally went on to front the crusty grind powerviolence band Dead In The Dirt and then the deathgrind band Infernal Coil, you could find him mixing mathcore, grindcore, screamo, sass, noise, and more with Me and Him Call It Us, who released their second and final album Loss in 2006. Blake's later bands are more pulverizing, but MAHCIU are undeniably the most chaotic. On Loss, they sound like they're destroying their instruments as they're playing them. Songs change shape and fall off their hinges at the drop of a hat. One works in a harshly screamed interpolation of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" ("Just Can't Function No More"). One includes so many minutes of guitar feedback that even the members of Sonic Youth might turn it off (and it's called "Headache"). The album feels like it's going to fall apart at any given second, and it kind of makes sense that the band themselves imploded the following year. I don't know how much longer something that sounds this combustible could possibly last."

• Andrew Sacher
  Brooklyn Vegan, May 2021

"After terrorizing the terror-proof at countless shows in support of bands with much more confrontational names, Me and Him Call It Us finally have a digital long-player (relatively speaking) capturing whatever they decide to play at any given moment, apparently. Just as their shows leave many scratching their heads trying to describe them, "Loss" is similarly enigmatic, jumbling sparse noise-core with lengthy drones and permutations of feedback and distortion. Certainly, some tracks flow more seamlessly into others, with a variety of surprisingly restrained interludes between particularly intense moments, but there is a sense of unity to the album that encompasses even the stray frustrated vignettes and sonic silly string. A shocking number of the song titles sound like a parody of Slint, such as "'Mayday! Mayday!' Cried the Captain", "Into Troubled Waters, I Sink" and "That Ghost is Breathing Again". Then again, the oddly endearing "My Heart Beats in Blast Beats" and the hysterical "Innocent Bystanders Watched in Horror as Peter Jennings Drew His Murder Weapon" make up for the rampant post-rock-isms in the tracklisting. Granted, most post-rock bands don't include lyric booklets, though the one for Loss ranks up there with Smashing Pumpkins' original Siamese Dream insert in the very minor contest of most infuriatingly illegible song book. Of course, good luck deciphering most of the vowel sounds, let alone entire choruses and verses, if those terms indeed apply with a sound such as this. The music is meant to be grating and abrasive, however, and for all the duo's efforts to alienate the listener, "Loss" is one of the strongest local releases this year. It's noise rock for music fans who thought they were past jagged riffs and throaty screaming, serving as a reminder that heavy music continues to have its day in the art rock sun."

• Mike Misiak
  "Loss" review
  Southeast Performer Magazine, May 2006