Review

The scatological Texans prove that nothing is sacred.
The progressive instinct still alive in the '80s? You bet. By mid-decade, the once vigorously anti-establishment independent music sector had been subdued, its new role being little more than a training ground for imminent pop stardom. Deep in Texas, though, a new noise, one no less hermetic and perhaps deluded than vintage prog, was stirring. It was the scatological Buttholes, who peaked in 1987 with this head-spinningly eclectic set, where Black Sabbath tributes ("Sweat Loaf"), mocking blues holler ("Pittsburg to Lebanon") and industrial grind ("22 Going On 23") are effected with clownish abandon. Nothing is sacred, and seemingly everything is permitted. "Hay," literally of hundreds of "Hey!"s over a stop-start tape running backwards, evokes Zappa. There are Devo-like squeals all over "7," which breaks out into a particularly vicious, Van Der Graaf-style nut job halfway through. The Buttholes collage style approach has been aped many times since, but never bettered.