This one has been kicking around for a while, but having it arrive once again from my pals at Foxy D gave me a fine reason to revisit it. I’m really glad I did. American Masonry is a perfect recording for this ugly, wet, gray day. Many of Bob Bellerue’s projects take on a narrative of sort for me when I hear them. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily intentional, or if he really means to imply the specific things I hear, but he tends to employ a focus that gives a sense that he has a clear idea of where he’s going and how he’s going to get there. American Masonry might be the best example of this tendency. The first track conjures the sights and sounds of a massive thunderstorm. The sky gets dark, the rain starts, and in comes these pummeling, low-end synth sounds that just unleash a hellish, windswept downpour. The storm dissipates almost as quickly as it rolled in, leaving this empty, soaked landscape. I can almost smell that post thunderstorm odor as track one comes to a close. Track two is a bit more of a mellow affair, leaving behind some of the bombastic sounds to create more atmosphere than anything. This one is built on similar, reverb-laden, low-end synth drones, but brings in some feedback, high-pitched tones, and what might be some vocals. It creates more of a depiction of some psychological state that hovers somewhere between being awake and drifting into some dark dream state. Part three picks up where the second ends, taking you deeper into nightmarish netherworld – not that jarring, wake-up sort, but the kind where everything seems to be a bit off and getting worse by the minute. As the synth sounds slowly build to this incredible, distorted dirge, weird voices emerge and recede, organic metal sounds rise and fall, but in the end, all that’s left is an emptiness that sounds a lot like my tinnitus. Overall, this is a pretty incredible recording. Bellerue maintains an impressive control over the chaos he creates, balancing these intense, overdriven, claustrophobic moments with vast, empty soundscapes. There is always a sense of space, yet no indication of where that space is, how you got there, or how to get out. 9/10 -- Joe Beres (10 June, 2009)