Rapeman
Two Nuns And A Pack Mule

After dissolving Big Black in 1987, singer/guitarist Steve Albini recruits the formidable rhythm section of the Texas band Scratch Acid (drummer Ray Washam and bassist David Sims) and gives life to the Rapeman project, one of the greatest expressions of American underground rock of all time.

This essential power-trio from Chicago's work consists of an EP ("Budd," 1988) and an LP ("Two Nuns And A Pack Mule, 1989"). The latter is one of the capital works of its time: along with various "Skag Heaven," "You're living all over me," "Doolittle," "Daydream Nation," "No Control," "Umber," and many other precious (and often underestimated) works of the late '80s, "Two Nuns" helped usher alternative rock from the '80s to the '90s, from hardcore to post-rock (understood not specifically as genres, but generally as eras). Due to an uncommon reflective capacity, an attitude to intellectually rework highly moldable materials like hardcore and noise (two languages that had become "classic" by the late '80s), technical expertise hard to overlook, and most importantly, a more than rare inspiration, "Two Nuns And A Pack Mule" must be counted among the masterpieces of the so-called post-hardcore.

Compared to Albini's previous experience, Rapeman presents at least two major differences: one in terms of the rhythm section, the other in terms of harmonic section. On one hand, the dynamism, power, versatility, audacity, creativity, and unpredictability of the Washam/Sims duo allows Albini to compose what he couldn't with the relentless and mechanical drum-machine of the Big Black era; on the other hand, while the presence of two guitars in Big Black's lineup was the source of the band's extremely dense sound, Albini now finds himself alone, with his proverbially detuned, acidic, shrill, sadistic, hysterical guitar, resulting in a more stripped-down sound.
Albini has never embraced the rigorous dictates of old-school hardcore, always seeking a personal, introverted, tormented, intellectual, sophisticated, self-reflective expressive path from the beginning. However, some Big Black tracks ("Jordan Minnesota," "Stinking Drunk," "Bazooka Joe") were true "frontal assaults," marked by unplanned violence. Hardly any of that remains in Rapeman, where rhythms are almost always more cadenced, dragging, syncopated, cryptic, although often subject to sudden bursts and devastating seismic shocks. But this intellectualization of hardcore should certainly not be understood as its domestication, or worse, as pure self-serving amusement (as often occurs in much cerebral '90s math-rock): Albini's music remains extremely communicative, visceral, capable of striking at the heart, despite (or perhaps because of) the monstrous deformations. Rapeman's tracks are ultimately brilliant examples of rock minimalism, for their ability to deduce some of the most complex and daring harmonic architectures and blends from a stripped-down instrumentation (three instruments, zero overdubs) and leveraging devices often borrowed, as we shall see, from more canonical rock.

The beginning is immediately a masterpiece: "Steak And Black Onions" is the most "indie" track of the album, the most perversely catchy, the most laid-back, where the feedback carpet laid by Albini seems to challenge the frayed edges of a Mascis, and the vocal register, anguished and exhausted, immediately evokes Cobain. "Monobrow" is perhaps the highlight of the album, one of the highest expressions of Albini's concept of "non-rock song": usually, in noise-rock, the guitar theme fragments and degrades into dissonance over the course of the track (see: Sonic Youth); here, however, the motif (vaguely and surrealistically oriental) begins already disintegrated and is gradually formed before exploding into an earthquake of percussion and a hurricane of distorted bass: to act as a disorienting interlude to this monstrous cacophonic piece, there's a grotesquely danceable rhythm in which languid and indolent guitar moans overlap. Brilliant, to say the least. Then comes "Up Beat," the most driven track: spasmodic singing and shredded guitar, a compressed, frustrated, decomposed "Stinking Drunk," absolutely hostile to any form of catharsis. "Coition Ignition Mission" is a jungle of poisonous radiation, occasionally opening to glimpses of heart-rending drama. "Kim Gordon's Painties" is the most sarcastic track in Albini's entire career, a true parody of the noise-pop of certain mature Sonic Youth. In "Hated Chinee," Albini surpasses himself, both as a singer and guitarist, reaching unparalleled peaks of ferocity and screeching, while the rhythm section relentlessly reiterates an intermittent pace that will set the standard. "Radar Love Lizard" is an unrelenting rhythmic whirlwind, while "Marmoset" stands as the peak of structural complexity of the entire album. Then comes the cover you don't expect: "Just Got Paid" by ZZ Top! The interpretation by Rapeman is anthological: in the series, "how to show the subconscious of southern-rock." In this memorable cover, where the band carves out space for another sparkling, disorienting, surreal dub digression, the secretly redneck, barbaric, primitivist soul of a metropolitan nerd like Steve Albini emerges. It closes with "Trouser Minnow," a formally important track for post-rock, with its elastic structure, its repressed anger, always on the verge of exploding, until the devastation of the refrain.

Jesus Lizard will pick up from the achievements of this album. Shellac, with "Action Park," will offer a "dry" version of this incomparable masterpiece. More generally, everyone who in the '90s played the card of a noise-rock as essential in its premises as it was extravagant in its solutions, had to reckon with the many insights of this album.