Cows
Whorn

If you get off at KarlsPlatz and keep your eyes open, you can see the Secession Building. If you continue straight on that road, the Linke Wienzeile, you reach the Naschmarkt which literally means Delicious Market. There you can smell the food aromas from around the world. If you persevere and decide to go past it, you reach the Flohmarkt, the largest flea market in Vienna. Among those stalls, there is everything, from Red Army trinkets to a forgotten Picasso, and that's where I got this gem from the Cows for a mere 5 Euros.

To be honest, the name Cows didn't ring a bell at first, but with some patience, I remembered where we had crossed paths, though not formally introduced. The first encounter, as I seem to recall, happened when Cobain decided to suspend the recordings of In Utero for two days just to see their concert. Such news to a teenage me must have sounded like a desperate thirst for knowledge then faded away. A second encounter happened when that whacked-out Rutmains, bassist and musical linchpin of the Cows, started playing with the Melvins. A third when everyone began recommending them to me and I ignored them. Well, in the end, the Cows won.

Whorn, released by Tom Hazelmyer's Amphetamine Reptile in 1996, is the most ramshackle Post-Hardcore I've ever come across. Take the Jesus Lizard and strip away any artistic or aesthetic temptations, add a guitarist, or rather a guitar owner, who's not very skilled but so original it's paradoxical, a bass that the moment the stereo is turned on, shatters the home's tiles, paired with a drum set that calling syncopated would be an understatement. Add a little trumpet and an immense love for blues tunes and obscene noise and there you have it. The Cows from Minneapolis aren't doing too well. This is clear.

"Divorcee' Moore", "A Oven", "The Warden" are a spectacular start, the kind that leaves you dazed with fury and precision. "Mas-No Mas" sounds like a Scratch Acid track at double speed; "Four Things" is madness canonized. "Tropic Of Cancelled" has one of those bass lines you can't help but love (yes, I'm talking to you growing up with the idea that the bass should shatter eardrums but also make you sway). The recipe is this: guitar free to have fun and bass doing the heavy lifting, a formula that reverses in "Organized Meat" which with the arrival of the trumpet becomes pure lust. "Massa Peel" seems like a caress, but quickly transforms into the most violent slap of Whorn; "A Gift Called Life" is noise in its raw state, "Jikan" the confirmation that these Cows are colossal fools.

The moral of the story is that people rid themselves of wonderful things. Check well the contents of records, of the record stalls at the Flohmarkt, and your toilets.