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When I hear people say that Joy Division did not play a role in the radical change in rock music, I wonder if they truly realize how many realities would not have existed without their work. On the other hand, we're not talking about the Clash, who took a lot from J.D. after their demise.
But evidently, in the post-Nirvana rock world, there is no room for legends like Scratch Acid (quite influenced by the Division), a Texan band that allowed Nirvana themselves to indirectly adopt certain sounds and vocals (yet unknown to the masses of teenagers) that led them to dominate the Seattle underground scene.
But that's another story.
If Nick Cave and the Birthday Party had inserted a touch of catacombal blues into the new wave, the Scratch Acid took it to an extreme, reaching a mystical paroxysm, masterfully integrated into a correct metric sense of 28 pieces (!).
In their way of expressing themselves, delightful blues ballads are ruthlessly violated by corrosive guitars supported by piercing screams, unique, visceral, and transporting, to a twisted dimension where physical pain and suffering merge with mental anguish, as in "Cannibal" (whose lyrics resemble a journey of a blade inside a hypothetical oro-pharyngeal canal of pure existential desolation), "Mary Had a Little Drug Problem," and "She Said".
The real strength in this self-destructive ritual is therefore the voice of David Yow, the group's vocalist and bassist: his outbursts of neurotic origin make the sound absolutely sharp, almost prophetic.
With "El Espectro," "Albino Slug," and "Crazy Dan," one can fully appreciate the blues vein that definitively completes an album destined to influence much more than could have been expected.
"The Greatest Gift" represents a snapshot of everything S.Acid were.
Prematurely disbanded, they left macabre Texas to move to Chicago, where they had the chance to meet a "certain" Steve Albini, leaving the "acid creature" incomplete.
But it was precisely in the city of Michigan that they gave birth to another historic band: JESUS LIZARD.
But this too is another story.
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