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Avg: 4.5 (4 ratings)
- Date Released: January 1, 1990
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Alternative
- Label: Touch And Go
The Jesus Lizard gaining their stride in what would be a lesser band's career apex
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We Say...
For Jesus Lizard fans of a certain severely underground persuasion, this is the band's best album, a noise-rock classic cut before the Lizard had refined their sound into the juggernaut displayed on Goat and Liar. These folks are wrong, but they have a point. All the pistons are firing here. Duane Denison has nailed the Zep+rockabilly+noise equation he would keep refining for the life of the band. Bassist David Wm. Sims is better recorded that on the band's debut EP Pure and his parts thrum all the harder for it. And drummer Mac McNeilly is a revelation, underground rock's answer to John Bonham's heavy-handed swing. Overall, one fantastic rhythm section.
As for Yow, well, it's hard to think of a singer who better represented the chaos of a mind under duress. Song after song, Yow gives the impression of hearing the thoughts of the truly demented (or at least really, really drunk) in real time; his voice has a you-are-there quality that can't be taught or is rarely accidentally discovered.
"One Evening" opens the record in a classic Lizard rush — Sims and Mac in lockstep, Denison's guitar almost a color element until it establishes the main riff and Yow's muffled bellowing acting like the grenade tossed into a moving tank. "My Own Urine" is their idea of a ballad (read: slow song with demented screaming intact). "If You Had Lips" almost scans as a novelty at first, with its jazzy drums. "Pastoral" is just that, or a close approximation anyway. "Tight 'n'Shiny" is an instrumental which gained a stellar live reputation when Yow would use it as a chance to lower the mic to pants-height to display his balls (His explanation: "They're singing.") And "Killer McHann" became a live staple. Head would be the apex of any lesser band's career; amazingly it is the sound of these geniuses just starting out. -
They Say...
With McNeilly in to provide a little more human swing to the proceedings -- appropriate given Denison's own jazz-madness tendencies -- the Jesus Lizard fully launched themselves on an unsuspecting world with Head. The brutal, bass-heavy slam of the music, testament to the uncredited engineering/producing abilities of Steve Albini, gives the whole record a punch that most indie rock didn't have at the time, looking ahead to where similarly minded groups like Helmet (also produced by Albini) would end up soon enough. The McNeilly/Sims rhythm dictates the songs, letting Denison and Yow both find their own way over the chugging brusqueness as they see fit. Yow for the most part sounds like he's singing through a wall or through a huge amount of cotton gauze, making his lyrical tales of violence, twisted living, and the like one for lyric-sheet readers to work out, but the amped-up roars and leers evident in his vocals do a fine job on their own. Then again, the song titles aren't exactly ones to suggest flowers and roses, as "My Own Urine," "Waxeater," and the perfectly creepy "If You Had Lips" make rather clear. Yow's Birthday Party worship is now one more readily shared by the band with McNeilly's presence, the fusion of dark blues and proto-punk rampage -- "My Own Urine," in fact, being a good example of just that -- let to run loose. The stentorian stomp of "7 vs. 8" and the stabbing attack of "Good Thing" in particular might as well be early Cave on the vocals, Yow in mad-preacher mode in excelsis. There's a definite weird playful touch all the band's own, though, whether it's in the sassy strut that starts "If You Had Lips" or even, on the start of "Pastoral," a bit of chiming guitar prettiness.
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| 01. |  |
One Evening |
3:01 |
|
| 02. | |
S.D.B.J. |
2:28 |
|
| 03. | |
My Own Urine |
3:08 |
|
| 04. | |
If You Had Lips |
3:13 |
|
| 05. | |
7 vs. 8 |
3:35 |
|
| 06. | |
Pastoral |
3:30 |
|
| 07. | |
Waxeater |
2:09 |
|
| 08. | |
Good Thing |
1:45 |
|
| 09. | |
Tight 'N Shiny |
2:11 |
|
| 10. | |
Killer McHann |
2:16 |
|
| 11. | |
Chrome (Bonus Track - Single Version) |
3:52 |
|
| 12. | |
Killer McHann (Bonus Track - Live - Single Version) |
2:10 |
|
12 Total Tracks, 33:18 Total Length
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