Bitch Magnet
Umber

LA RECENSIONE

Bitch Magnet, a band from North Carolina, were one of the most important collectives in the transition from hardcore to slo-core, on par with Blind Idiot God and Squirrel Bait (and it was actually from this latter group that their founder, guitarist David Grubbs, came). Their music is still hardcore, but a hardcore aimed at that process of slowing down and containing the most unbridled emotions typical of post-rock, a rational hardcore I would dare to say, whose formula has deep roots even in the hard rock of Led Zeppelin.

In 1989, they released, under the Communion label, what remains their greatest work: "Umber", one of the highest points of late Eighties post-hardcore. The beginning is striking: "Motor" opens with the noise of mopeds in the background and an indistinguishable song, suffocated by distortions, almost ethereal. The guitar noise is unstoppable, and the drums are relentless, a prelude to that singular track "Navajo Ace", with an uncertain trend, where the "melody" seems to bump and bounce off an invisible wall. It is one of the tracks that best embodies the principles of math-rock.
With "Clay", experimentation and innovation begin: the coordinates of the Slint sound start to be heard, through an intro with a calm, subdued atmosphere and an imperceptible voice, quickly silenced by sudden explosions and guitar outbursts.
"Joan Of Arc" presents a dissected hardcore, with red-hot counterpoints, thanks to which the rhythm seems to fray and lose unity. By now, it is no longer just punk: in the following songs, the sound acquires more and more "grunge" characteristics (to the point that, in my very personal opinion, Nirvana was not just Pixies, but Pixies+Bitch Magnet).
Another experimental track is "Douglas Leader", with that bass intro that seems endless and that paralyzed, cold McMahan-like voice, so to speak. The unheard-of fury comes back to life in "Goat-Legged Country God", one of the most listenable moments of the record; a sort of distorted power ballad à la Husker Du.
There are many references, both backward and forward: in "Big Pining", it feels like listening to Fugazi in slow motion, a year before their explosion. The sound gains more power even in "Joyless Street" and in "Punch And Judy", where a Zeppelin-like riff takes the lead, and where the voice is buried by distortions. In closing, a howling guitar solo acts as a watershed for the advent of the last track, "Americruiser", over six minutes long, perhaps the piece that most anticipates Codeine and Slint.
Outbursts and pauses chase each other amidst a sea of narcolepsy, favored by the singer's usual subdued performance.

Ultimately, a little-known but epochal album, a sort of watershed between one way of making music and another. "Umber", on par with Talk Talk's "Spirit Of Eden", is perhaps the record that best represented the transitional phase between two decades.