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Double-review tonight, and two reviews that capture what may be the most insane stuff I've dealt with in recent times.

CALL OF CTHULU: THE DARK CORNERS OF THE EARTH

Have you ever played a game that has literally left you shaken or nervous after finishing? A game that literally captures the writings of someone who was completely insane and embraced it?

Then again, you ever play a game where your character can go crazy to the point he's whimpering, paranoid, and eventually going to kill himself?

This, my friends, is Call of Cthulu. A game so criminally underrated that I'm pretty sure the only reason we've found this at the store is because the previous owner was either too terrified to play it, hard difficulty or not. For starters, it's in first-person, and it emphasizes on stealth. First-person action and stealth go together like real-life stealth, which means you have to be EXTRA careful to survive when you get to that point.

Point, you say? Well, the first good chunk of the game is safe. You won't die unless you're really stupid as there's no conflict. You're just Jack Walters, an ordinary detective investigating a cult and then a missing man. Yeah, the Innsmouth folk are mean, threatening even. But that's a foreshadowing of what's to come...

But when the action begins, it grabs you by the balls. When you've investigated a small girl murdered by a monster amongst other things, you stay at the inn. Suddenly, the townsfolk are out to get you quietly. And by quietly, I mean kicking the doors down and shotguns blazing. To survive, you have to run int he next room, bolt the lock, push a shelf away from a door to go through it, bolt that lock, go through another door, bolt the lock, push a shelf through a door, push a shelf away from a window, jump out the window, and run towards an industrial house!

And that's just the start of the big chase. Notably, you can't fight back and every shot that nails you leaves you wounded, limping, perhaps even bleeding to death.

Do what!? Yes, this game has an injury system, so if your arm is wounded, you can't aim worth crap and if your leg's shot, your movement is much slower. If you're bleeding from wounds and not treated, your vision goes black-&-white, fades, and you're dead!

Wors tof all, this is a world based on Lovecraft, so you have a SANITY meter. Basically,your character is not able to just kill anything ad infinitum. He has a guilty conscioence and is only a human, so if you look at dead stuff or kill anything, your character becomes more irrational, has hallucinations, and hears stuff. Too much insanity is usually unhealthy, but in this man's case, it's suicide.

Overall, I haven't got too far in this game, but it's madness. And madness is fun, as I've never played a game that's kept me so far on the edge of my seat. Sure, the controls are a bit tough and the graphicism isn't perfect, but the fear factor and visionaries from Lovecraft's legendary works are captured to a head here.

If you have an XBox, this game is highly recommended for people who love H.P., challenging games, or something just plain terrifying.

BORIS- ABSOLUTEGO

Boris' first album is nothing like a fuzzy stoner rock or ambient minimalism captured in their later works, nor even in the same vein as their other wierded-out stuff (Like uhhh.......Vein.). Absolutego is the polar opposite of music. It is a 65-minute cacophonic behemoth that cannot be simply captured in a handful of words.

The first thing you hear is a swarming single note that manages to drag out over four minutes. The first note, a typical E or C, spans the length of a normal song. Any casual listening person would drop a "WTF!?!?!" and shut it off in fright or disgust. Open-minded listeners will be curious. After the inital "note", the next twenty minutes is a plodding animal, one droning note beating after another in the slowest "rhythm" possible and a nasty, downtuned guitar crunching in and out as a break between "chords" and "riffs". Eventually a drum kicks in, with single crashes to slowly bring together something all too inevitable. By the twenty-minute mark, the listener may have given up, but those who push on will get something else.

At the 25-minute mark, the instruments burst to life and become what is the closest to actual "music". A vicious downtuned instrumentation inspired by Melvins at their most painful, and adding to it is the drummer's vocals, which sound like a deranged woolly mammoth freshly consuming an entire swimming pool of PCP. After two minutes of incomprehensible "vocals" that fade into the abyss, we go back to the painful, ******** riffage. From minute 29-to about 38 it's just this, and then something just creeps in.

Feedback. It's the sound of a guitar ******** up and damaging your ears. Well, from the 38th minute to the 65th, it's nothing but that, intentionally manipulated to ward off all life within miles.It's by far THE most painful part, as it drags on, slowly raping your ears in a hurtful "art-form", and "grooving" on for what seems like 300 years. The moment it slows down is when it abruptly ends, and ironically, your ears are probably used to the aural-violation at this point.

So what the ******** is this!? Is it something in the vein of Sleeps' legendary Jerusalem, but instead of following the pattern of "RIFF-RIFF-LYRIC-RIFF-SOLO-RIFF-LYRICS ABOUT WEED-RIFF-RIFF-REPEAT FOR 50 MORE MINUTES" or in the vein of the Melvin's Lysol which is "LONG DRONE TUNE-SOME DOWNTUNED SONG-AWESOME COVER-AWESOME COVER-AWESOME COVER-GOOD MELVINS ROCKER"? Or even a Merzbow album which is "NOISE-NOISE-NOISE-NOISE-NOISE-REPEAT UNTIL YOU KILL YOURSELF"....

No this is Absolutego, which sounds like a regular-5-6 minute song drug out to Grand Canyon lengths and tuned to the most unlikable mindsets.

So it's more like 4-MINUTE NOTE-20 MINUTE DRONE-SOME SQUEAL-SOME GRUNT AND RIFF AND DUH-10 MINUTE DRONE-20 MINUTE FEEDBACK. Amazingly the US bonus track managed to be even more unbearable. Impossible to believe but it's true.

And some people insist this is the best album this band has ever released. lol

9/10.