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Rating: The Big Black were an old Steve Albini band. This album stands to Shellac's "Action Park" as a violent black and white comic in cheap paper stands to another deluxe edition by the same author, with the style now more "clean" and defined.
However, don't think of the cover image (gorgeous! and you should see the back), the images are dirty and unclear. Albini's "fucking songs" from "heart of shit" are claustrophobic and dark rooms.
All the tracks start with bass and electronic drum hits with echo (oh yes! never heard an e.d. so rock, anyway) to outline the environment, then Albini and Durango's guitars and the voice enter, and nothing makes sense anymore: you're inside suffering an assault.
The guitars rarely indulge in "defined" riffs but rather seem like sawing and twisting of sheets, other times (Fish Fry) it feels like they're being slammed against one wall and then the other.
Alternating are white-hot punk assaults (The Power..., L Dopa, Colombian Necktie, Ergot, Fish Fry) and slower, darker tracks. The first ones, dense with stop and go, let you breathe for a second to bruise your brain in the following ones. In the latter (in which you seem to hear foreshadowings of Slint-Tweez and Helmet-Strap It On) it's Albini's malicious voice that makes the difference, angular, hysterical, more evil than ever, telling the usual stories from Heart book.
("the backbone of this country are the independent truckers / the power of the trucker comes from his truck / the best part is mm mm the cab bed / that's where the truckers fortify their backbone, backbone, backbone / mm mm mm / a punch in the face / mm mm mm / move like an animal, grunt like an animal..." (The Power of Independent Trucking).
Ergot describes the sensations of those who ate the wafers made with bread infected with this psychedelic fungus, which, according to Albini, are due to the visions of the early Christians...).
Two covers: "The Model" (Kraftwerk), splendid, my flight in a bomber over a U.S. metropolis, "He's a Whore" (Cheap Trick), curious, a pop pastry gone bad, like Nirvana forced to play for the 999th time.
Not an easy record, but on my very personal scorecard.
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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Other reviews
By theJOKE
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.
The rawness of the recording... 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.
