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Rating: Even Kraftwerk must have had a good laugh hearing the cover of their "THE MODEL" redone in an underground-noise-hardcore style.
Because listening to a band like Big Black is like getting a fix without having to resort to needles or snorts, everything goes directly through your ears. A barrage of synthesised drumming with devastating impulses emitted by a tireless drum machine, completing the trio entirely based on heavily distorted and gain-maxed guitar and bass.
The CD opens with "The power of independent trucking", a quick burst of hardcore rage with vocals obscured by proto-industrial group noise and guitars so flooded with fuzz that they create just a indistinct mass of deafening yet powerful sound.
Except for the wonderful cover (also because no group had ever covered a Kraftwerk song in a rock style), the subsequent tracks tend to be too monotonous even though they stand out for the singer's vocal style and the bassist's skill in keeping pace with the drum machine.
It is perhaps precisely the latter that makes it impossible to mark a great difference from one song to another, but on the other hand, it is also their trademark that has established them as one of the most influential groups on the underground scene.
The rawness of the recording (the CD states "The CD was remastered from the original cassette tape, recorded in the singer's basement") is mainly due to the fact that it is a self-produced album by the two guys who took on the weight of the recording without resorting to sophisticated methods, only to be later absorbed by Touch and Go, whose influence is felt in later works.
Some English critics have compared the band for their sparse and direct sound to Scandinavian black metal bands that always record in desecrated churches or abandoned venues, giving the album that killer basement atmosphere of a horror film.
I don't think Big Black's sound can be compared to that of Darkthrone or Mayhem, also because there is nothing satanic about this band (their lyrics, as the CD title says, are "About Fucking" and that says it all), but surely those who know the two aforementioned bands will get an idea.
The CD cover is marvelous, all green with the titles at the top and a girl drawn in manga style simulating pleasure (evident from her facial expression and sweat) stretched out horizontally with the cover.
Pure disease
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 The Model (02:35)
She's a model and she's looking good
I'd like to take her home with me, that's understood
Playing hard-to-get, she smiles from time to time
It only takes a camera to change her mind
Posing for consumer products now and then
I even saw her on the cover of a magazine
She's going out to nightclubs drinking just champagne
She is looking good, I want to see her again
04 L Dopa (01:41)
I got a sickness sweet as a love note
I got a headache like a pillow
Called me Daisy, called me Daisy, called me Daisy, that one
Called me Daisy
I am a sweetheart
I am a prom queen
I am some puppies
What, Daisy?
What, Daisy?
Are we here now?
I am a horror
This is an old one
What, Daisy?
L Dopa fixed me, all right
06 Colombian Necktie (02:14)
Gotta get loaded, I gotta go off
Don't call her to save me
Don't call her hack off
More like an ashcan
More like a time bomb
More like a stovepipe
Columbian necktie
I don't want to die, I just wanted to give her the works
Don't call her to safety ??
Don't call her to report
More like an ashcan
More like time bomb
More like a stovepipe
Columbian necktie
I don't want to die, I just wanted to give her the works
When I get loaded, gotta go home
Don't call her to safety
Don't call her hack off
More like an ashcan
More like time bomb
More like a stovepipe
Columbian necktie
I don't want to die, I just wanted to give her the works
08 Ergot (02:28)
Out
No
mm mm mm mm mm my head
mm mm mm mm mm bread
mm mm mm mm mm my head
mm mm mm mm mm bread
Do you see that?
I will run
mm mm mm mm mm head
Must've had some wheat bread
mm mm mm mm mm head
mm mm mm mm bad bread
mm mm mm mm
I will run
mm mm mm
It makes you want to mm
Can't you feel the cold hand mm?
I see mm mm mm mm mm
I can hear the sound of mm
I fell in the roach bed ??
Bad bread
10 Fish Fry (02:06)
Hosin' out the cab of his pickup truck
He's got his 8-track playin' really f**kin' loud
The one who wouldn't mm his brother 's dead
She's wearin' his bootprint on her forehead
Saw her at the picture show out on the highway
After the fish fry, late last Friday
Havin' a fish fry, number one fish fry
Havin' a fish fry, deeper than a mm mm??
Havin' a fish fry, number one fish fry
The fish fry out by Frenchtown
They say they saw you out there at Frenchtown
They say they saw you out by Frenchtown
Now I f**k you and I hit you with my shoe
And I hide your bloody body in Frenchtown pond
Sometimes you know you want to f**k somebody up
Sometimes you just want to f**k
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By antimo_d
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