Jane's Addiction
Nothing's Shocking

The Janes captured in this 1987 album are perhaps their best, "Nothing's" is the so-called breakthrough work, in some ways a Riot album, but what shocks the most are all the broken codes, there are no taboos for this Rock music that abuses many clichés to subvert and deconstruct with abundant doses of energy and imagination a Rock that otherwise had been floundering for too long in the Los Angeles Hardcore scene... and it's precisely from Los Angeles that these Janes, led by singer Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro with a well-prepared and high rhythm section (Perkins-Avery), inject their dose into our veins: it starts with "Up the Beach", it's a single exhausting guitar solo that bursts and contracts spasmodically like a stormy wave, followed by "Oceans Size", this time Navarro plays the Jimi Hendrix role, the energy is already abundant when "Had A Dad" starts, it's pure Funk-Punk with sudden psychological slashes (highlighted by the guitar that shifts from Metal to psychedelic drift) creating a climate of imminent overdose, listening to them one can't help but imagine oneself on a Venice Beach, amid dives, drunken sleeps on fiery beaches, acid trips in the debauched local rave parties...

Despite the sensations, there's very little urban in their music; what is captured is the hallucinatory reality of Pin Ups in a cinerama jungle that is Los Angeles; the fourth track clarifies things: "Ted I Just Admit It", it starts slowly, distant distortions and Farrell's whispers, a claustrophobic atmosphere, that derails on Navarro's first machine guns, and here comes Farrell's bawdy proclamation "Sex Is Violent" croaks the latter as the propulsion of unrestrained lasciviousness reaches proportions of delirium tremens, Acid Hard Rock with Metal and Funky bursts. To balance the work, here's "Standing In the Showers"... which puts more emphasis on Avery's bass, a healthy Funky for fun, then "Summertime Rolls", the somewhat dreamy ballad that stands out for harmony. But the brazen charge returns with "Mountain Song", and the group overflows again, Heavy Metal riffs, Farrell recites a corollary in a circle, between cocaine tracks and semi-consensual rapes, the guitar flares up on the spasm of distortions, but remains incredibly harmonic, like Beethoven performing Speed-Core.

This is the Janes' aesthetic, masters of Thrash aesthetics. "Idiots Rule" sneaks in with its party climate a bit of excesses, hedonistic and funky with an unusual sax counterpointing the bass played by Flea from the Red Hot for the occasion, it's a fanfare for a wild night. The acoustic ballad "Jane Says" once again demonstrates that there are no musical prejudices to draw ideas from in this album, the interlude of "Bossanova" connects to the finale "Pigs In Zen" where a certain taste for the decadent and the gothic (English Dark ancestry?) emerges, rumbling riffs of Navarro, Farrell's cantillation of a maniacal debauchery, a punch in the stomach that closes the album.