Volcano Suns
Thing Of Beauty

In 1988, Mudhoney dedicated the title of their debut record to the infernal guitar distortions (Mark Arm's Super-fuzz, and Steve Turner's "Hendrixian" Big Muff) responsible for their wild and noisy sound. In the underground of the late '80s, the four of them were in good and even more fierce company in this regard: it's well known that certain "alternatives" of that time liked to amplify themselves with knobs and sliders turned up full blast, and, amidst distortions, buzzes, and feedback, make "progressive" rock by mixing generous doses of guitar racket with melodic snippets of various lengths.

Reflecting on that tribe of valiant ones, not much memory is preserved of the Volcano Suns, a Boston-based trio with an unstable lineup and a long independent tenure: with this "Thing of Beauty" from '89 (double vinyl branded SST...) they had reached their fifth LP, and this was their best edition ever with the newly appointed guitarist David Kleiler (one who seemed to have apprenticed under Gregg Ginn and Joe Mascis and with an instrument borrowed from the Moore/Ranaldo duo), the confirmed Bob Weston on bass, harmonically quirky and with a sound as smooth as a combine harvester (we'll find him again, not by chance, years later with S.E. Albini in Shellac) and the impetuous background tam-tam managed by Peter Prescott, founding father and band leader, hired back in the day by the Miller/Conley pair no less than for the Mission of Burma because "...he played in an atypical way... beats reversed..".

Besides being "atypical" with the sticks, Prescott was also a hell of a music writer: having abandoned the lanolinish pop-punk of the beginning, he had perfected over the years a style (?) imaginative and wandering, extremely stern in sounds and zigzagging in rhythms, of such uncertain paternity to stand out (well) within that nascent "alternative nation" of which he nevertheless exhibited with the V.S., a regular passport. Of his ungrammatical yet, on closer inspection, lucid writing, "ToB" contains numerous examples, of which at least the best must be cited to give an idea: "Ask the Pundits": irresistible anthem for alcoholics anonymous on leave, "It's a Conspiracy": deafening orgy with a hint of Crampsian lycanthropy, "Soft (!!! ndr) Hit": flakes of garage-punk from the house minced with Farfisa on a bed of scrap metal, "Malamondo": a war dance for post-bomb cannibals and "Hang Up": scrappy folk skit from a voice-a guitar-a chord (and all off-key). Also making a good impression, although more orthodox, is the contribution to the cause given here and there by recruit Kleiler, at the forefront with "Barricade", a nice ride on the backs of the Sonic Youth of those years while the collective stands out in the din of "Needles in a Camel's Eye", a respectful and not accidental homage to an era Brian Eno, quite the character himself, in his youthful delight in rock oddities.

Volcanic not just in name, the three leave behind with "ToB", surely their best pandemonium of ideas even if, all together, they might be a bit too many and not always perfectly in focus; however, looking at it from another perspective, "the work" also turns out to be a creative and almost perfect Bignami of the era so much so that, if the classic little green man showed up in my neck of the woods, with a trumpet nose, antennae, etc., and the badge from the "Bastioni di Orione" Musical Studies Center, looking for something from the "alternatives" of the late '80s to take home, I believe I would hand him this very thing, confident of doing a good service... to him and to Prescott & Co.

3.5 (recurring)