MX-80 Sound
Hard Attack

...I agree when I read about them (and many times over the years I've come across the description) as an indefinable bastard cross between the Sex Pistols and Captain Beefheart, but this definition can only be followed by a question - perhaps insoluble: is it Rotten arranging Van Vliet or vice versa...? And could it be that neither of them (I try to imagine the scene and it's certainly not a pretty sight) had Tom Herman say a word...? Judge for yourselves (or at least, try: because it's no small feat).

Bloomington, Indiana: far from the most publicized musical America, and also far from what - commonly - one thinks when they think of Indiana (beyond the Pacers or the Indianapolis 500 oval): Michael Jackson? John Mellencamp? Forget them. Rather, two pathological "dissociates" in the form of Rich Stim and Bruce Anderson could have had honorary citizenship in Manhattan of those years, and no one would have objected. However, circumstances led them west - Bay Area, to be precise, to settle at Ralph and keep company with Residents, Tuxedomoon, and a certain Philip "Snakefinger" Lithman. But the story that this album tells is an earlier story. Earlier than that "Out Of The Tunnel" that some might remember (and which marked their debut for the historic San Francisco label).

Before Ralph, the MX have a story that's anything but negligible. Made of a (perhaps raw) introductory EP titled "Big Hits" and this first long-playing record recorded for Island. A "hard attack," no doubt, and when the title itself perfectly foreshadows the contents, you're dealing with something "serious" - you get my drift. If then the declared references are the modern dance of Pere Ubu and a certain returning "hendrixism" subjected and adapted to the rhythms of a punk that in '77 is already POST without being "punk" in the strict sense, then the first impressions will be confirmed without delay. Metallic and psychedelic in equal measure (but of course: one could be psychedelic even in that fateful year, after all, even Chrome showed that), the MX showcase one of the most radical and "disturbing" proposals of the period - even before Anderson, who reinvented himself as a decent soloist in the '80s, wrote two twin manuals of authentic "brutality" for guitar.

"Brutal", indeed, but anything but monolithic and monotonous in their animalistic aggressiveness; even vaguely philosophical - with Stim, a ragtag Kerouac of the province, sketching disconnected thoughts of "on the road" life, as in "Man On The Move" ("you never really know what's gonna come up next / so you better look out / hey - and how much does that 'hey!' sound like Jimi - LOOK OUT!!!"). Or he dispenses instructions on how to pick up underage girls at parties (in "Kid Stuff") or still, he outlines the salient features of a "Summer of '77" that, 10 years later, is more a summer of pure sexual violence than of blissful "Peace & Love" - between recited and screamed. Meanwhile, Bruce backs him with zig-zag lines of handmade proto-metal guitar work, which resemble the convulsions of a neurotic's brain more than actual riffs. Rhythm changes, sudden stops, and ruleless instrumental "involutions," breathless fervor and (partially) unexplored territories of visionary hysteria. Listen to the beginning of "Tidal Wave" and you’ll already hear the precursors of grunge; in "Facts-Facts" there's a preview of the primordial (and "beefheartian," not by chance) Cave of the Birthday Party, and here and there cuts of sax (hardly "orthodox") mix with the guitar, played by Stim himself. The rhythm section is pure DISARTICULATION, as in that "You're Not Alone" which ranks among the high points of the entire work and starts at the pace of a spastic and often "tripped" chase ("you can run you can run you can run, but you can't run away from me"), only to climax/open with a monumental/dreamlike solo by Anderson, and at that point even Fripp of the "Red"-era doesn't seem so far away - ecstasy.

MILESTONE. 4.5 rounded up.