Japan’s noise-rock flagship band always deserve the benefit of the doubt. Seadrum/House of Sun, their first US release since 1999’s Vision Creation Newsun, is a challenge, with not one but two 20-minute-plus drones, one drum-heavy, the other just heavy. The album is transcendent in spots, but even after repeated listens, I couldn’t find much behind Boredoms’ wall of impenetrability. At its best, the track "Seadrum" explodes with underwater percussion samples, a firm bedding for Yoshimi’s unintelligible croon, and the harp-like splashes of piano glissandi. It’s like some gloriously screwed-up theme to Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood. The drone raga "House of Sun," on the other hand, is a gigantic mess of Eastern strings and ambivalence. Word is, though, that if you play "Seadrum" and "House of Sun" at the same time, it’s the greatest song ever.