Big Black
Lungs

THE REVIEW

There are albums that surpass their beauty with charm. It's for those albums that I reserve a special place, for those works that carry their years, collapsing under the weight of time. It works like with people: if you have charm, the passage of time on your body—despite thinning hair, despite some expanding waistline—can only increase your charm.

This "Lungs" sounds, today, as old as it is original for its geographical relocation of the New Wave, for the sounds that come from a parallel universe they are so improbable. I bet the Albini of today, in his splendid "forties and beyond", will look at this album without the embarrassment mixed with disapproval felt in front of old photos depicting ourselves with our anguishing hairstyles.

To the twenty-year-old Albini of 1982, it must have seemed like a big deal to suddenly find himself kicked out of the band and all alone. Among the many paths possible, none must have seemed particularly good. Alone, with the contribution of John Bohnen on sax,, the faithful Roland and a four-track borrowed for a crate of beer,, in two weeks,, divided between two apartments,, he gave life and home to his creature.

"Lungs" is one of those parties held at some unknown person's house, which you attended by mistake and that ends with you collapsed on some unknown person's couch and with your mood at the "Big Black" stage. A party to which the P.I.L. accidentally attended, who came by invite of the Gang of Four who picked up the Wire as well, with the van lent to them by the Joy Division, while faithful Roland, your only friend, watches them suspiciously.

Thus, a New Wave concentrate with an Illinois accent. Not the Big Black, but Albini a year before the Big Black, but already in Big Black.

Three and a half stars.