y now, anyone even slightly familiar with the Load/Bulb axis of noise-rock artists is familiar with the bass/drum combo and what it connotes: earth-shaking, gut-wrenching, thick-as-molasses noise that will shake you to your core. The Load Records trio Noxagt hardly diverges from this formula, though they do add an interesting twist in the form of third member and viola player Nils Erga.

The combination of viola with roaring, from-the-bowels-of-hell noise seems counterintuitive on paper, but in Noxagt the two meld seamlessly; Erga’s viola charts scraping, atonal screeds across the surface of the distorted bass, sounding almost medieval as the duo of bassist Kjetil Brandsdal and drummer Jan Christian Kyvik pound out caveman jams underneath. “Gravy and Blood” begins with a chugging metal riff on the bass, accompanied by tentative percussion, before Erga introduces a primal viola motif -- a simple, repeating string of a few scraped, harsh notes -- that loops for the rest of the five-minute track and provides a stable basis for the other two’s increasingly frantic bashing. “Cockburn” is dominated by more thick, heavy riffs, and here Erga’s violin is only a plaintive screech trying desperately to work its way through the music’s meager cracks.

But no matter what its role is on any particular track, the viola provides the flavor for each song on the album. It provides the only hint of melody in this otherwise uncompromising music, and as harsh as the sounds Erga coaxes from his instrument can be, they still provide some small handhold in the vast seas of noise coming from his collaborators. The music is unrelentingly intense, and the album is blessedly short at just under 27 minutes. Turning It Down is a hard, fast burst of energetic, blistering noise that’s over at just the right time: before it becomes merely tiresome in its pummeling.

Even as it is, Noxagt seem somewhat less substantial than some of their Load Records peers. The album has precious little variety, even compared to a blistering masterpiece like Lightning Bolt’s Wonderful Rainbow, and after only half an hour of this stuff, it all starts to sound the same. Still, Turning It Down’s stylistic coherency makes it a near-perfect record for providing that un-tempered hit of adrenaline that only the most truly aggressive, noisy metal can deliver. With the incomparable opening salvo of “Mek It Burn,” “Cupid Shot Me,” and “Gravy and Blood” -- and another six cuts that nearly reach that level of raw carnage -- Noxagt’s debut should be an important stopping point for those in search of more Lightning Bolt-style lunacy.