With There's No 666 in Outer Space, Hella steps up with an album that is as fiercely imaginative as any the Sacramento-based group has released before. As groundbreaking and fearless as 2002's Hold Your Horse Is or 2004's The Devil Isn't Red, 666 provides its audience with a multifaceted listening experience that defies musical boundaries and may, upon repeated listens, permanently alter the senses. "Friends Don't Let Friends Win," "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle," "Let Your Heavies Out" and "The Things That People Do When They Think No One's Looking" marry the sturm und drang of Red-era King Crimson with the menacing whimsy of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. Others, including title cut "Anarchists Just Wanna Have Fun," imagine a harmonious union between the ever-theatrical Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and the heavier-than-thou System of a Down. But Hella has its own rich character and it occupies a mysterious and distinct musical universe, a territory that has yet to be named because we must first find a new vocabulary to begin to speak of it. This place requires that the listener have the heart and mind and ears of a world-class explorer, a seeker who trusts in the unknown and returns to strange sonic soil again and again to unravel its great grand mysteries, plot its progress, and bathe in its fertile soil. There's No 666 in Outer Space may be one of the most important releases of 2007. And it may be years later that we catch up with it. --Jedd Beaudoin