Bloody Hell!, 6 Feb 2002

Listening to it now I can see what came before and came after. It's most obvious parentage lies in the fetile brain of Steve Albini, a mate of the band. It's like a more organic version of Big Black,fittingly as David Sims once played with Albini in Rapeman, with a similar sense of attack and contolled noise. Imagine a speed fuelled, concentrated version of Black Sabbath, minus the wizards and mystic tosh, more stone cold insane than stonehenge stoned.

It's finger prints are all over 'In Utero' by Nirvana. Kurt was a big fan, he even tried to piggy back them to fame with a split double A side single of Nirvana's "Oh the Guilt" with "Puss" from this album. Imagine, The Jesus Lizard nearly made it onto Top of the Pops, now that would have been something.

Like Big Black, David Yows lyrics and singing style continually returns to pick at scabs, horrid small town tales, the horrible things that people do.

Musically the band specialise in small, clipped pieces of musical information repeated over and over, like The Fall at their most rocking. the first three tracks 'Boilermaker', 'Gladiator' and 'The Art of Self Defence' rock harder then almost any album opening that I can think of, and, manage to sound only like themselves, an almost amazing feat even in those heady days of invention.

I recommend this album but find it hard to say why, just like recommending that someone watch 'Deliverence' or read 'Hiroshima'. It's definately something ugly, but there's something there that has to be seen, unpleasent or not.

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