Big Black
Songs About Fucking

THE REVIEW

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