The Gun CLub
Miami

THE REVIEW

Hic sunt leones.

Listening to this immense album means getting lost in the no man's land of ancient cartographers: bass clattering, hyperkinetic drums, the voice of Jeffrey Lee Pierce that never stops but seems to almost take the form of the ghosts he evokes. His vocal cords strangle the lyrics, sob, suck, swallow... all accompanied by extremely high doses of sulfurous rock.

Pierce, with his companions of the time Ward Dotson Terry Graham and Rob Ritter, signs his masterpiece here: post punk which, like a spoon, dips into the Delta blues cauldron, giving us a sonic mixture on the verge of exploding and that will rarely be equaled. The same Lee Pierce will remain a martyr of rock, dark and sepulchral, with his voice a worthy heir to Jim Morrison and a perpetually sullen face... a man who always seemed dirty, always on the verge of causing a commotion, and who inspired numerous artists to come: consider, for example, Mark Lanegan, who in the album "I'll Take Care Of You" revisits the solemn "Carry home" in an unusual way, a cornerstone of this album.

The ritual of this dance covers typical scenarios of black folk music: you can enjoy the preparations for a voodoo mass, as you can remain suffocated by the heat and insects that "Watermelon Man" evokes. This is blacker-than-black music, reviewed and corrected by the drugged and destabilizing mind of a white boy, son of punk and its ephemeral revolution, who not satisfied with his brothers' rock sins and wanders into a red-light district echoing with forbidden music, the oldest and most fragrant, like the bosom of a beautiful mulatta. Finally, a nightmare full of broken branches and mud transported into the city by a luxurious and polished taxi where our heroes, wasted and dirty, snort cocaine while caressing the glossy thighs of four black and semi-nude ladies, while the radio screams like a fury: "Like Calling Up Thunder".