Record Reviews: Jesus Lizard reissues

By the time The Jesus Lizard formed, lead screamer David Yow and David Wm. Sims had already done time in the short-lived but highly influential Scratch Acid. Sims also played in Rapeman, Steve Albini’s post-Big Black noise act, so expectations were no doubt high.

Head was the Chicago quartet’s first full-length, and while it doesn’t quite match the highs the band would subsequently reach, all the group’s trademarks are here: the snaking rhythm section that drove the band, the howling guitar leads cutting over top like a razor and, of course, Yow’s murderous vocal wails. Lead track “One Evening,” in particular, would become the band’s blueprint on subsequent records.

Pure, an EP recorded before drummer Mac McNeilly was recruited, was long ago tacked onto the end of the band’s debut. The band play with a drum machine instead and sound like a gothed up Public Image Ltd. Although the songs stand up on their own, they do sound a bit disjointed sequenced after Head’s 10 tracks.

Further blemishing the album’s flow on this reissue are a pair of live tracks and their medley of Chrome covers appropriately titled “Chrome” that was previously only available on the Bang compilation. Of course, if it comes down to not having these tracks in the name of flow, we’ll still take them any day.

Goat consolidated the sound The Jesus Lizard had developed on their Head debut, furthering a signature noise with producer Steve Albini, creating the template for what would become “the Steve Albini sound” that bands — including Bush and Nirvana — would seek out in the coming years.

Opener “Then Comes Dudley” lays the track for the rest of the record — caustic, abrasive and never letting up. Even slower tracks like “Rodeo In Joliet” are an aurally exhausting enterprise, laying bare the band’s sense of conviction to stand out from the crowd and forge their own path.

Touch And Go has added five bonus tracks, including “Sunday You Need Love” from the “Mouthbreather” single, “Pop Song” from an Ampetamine Reptile comp and three live cuts: “Lady Shoes” and Money Stick” from the Lash EP and “Seasick” from a 1992 tour giveaway.

Liar was recorded in 1992, and is The Jesus Lizard firing on all cylinders, just in time for the flood of new interest in their brand of noisy underground rock.

The disc continues the band’s working relationship with producer Steve Albini, and is arguably the penultimate record the Chicago foursome created. Most notably, the album includes the original version of “Puss,” which would appear on the band’s split single with Nirvana.

Not that David Yow and company ould be viewed in the Seattle trio’s shadow. Liar featured some of the band’s most ferocious and, even in the climate of the times, confrontational tracks like “Boilermaker” and “Rope.”

The reissue includes a quartet of bonus cuts: demo versions of “Gladiator” and “Boilermaker” that were previously only available on an Australian seven-inch and the “Dancing Naked Ladies” single with B-side “Wheelchair Epidemic.”

Down marked the end of an era for The Jesus Lizard.

With their profile at its arguable height, it was the last album the group would record for Touch And Go before they signed with major label Capitol Records. It was also the last time they would work with Steve Albini, who reportedly severed ties with the band following their defection to Capitol.

Curiously, Down was released in 1993, the same year as Nirvana’s In Utero, who were signed to DGC. The latter album was produced by Albini and was remarkably similar in it’s sonic assault to the other Albini-produced Jesus Lizard albums.

Like the rest of The Jesus Lizard’s Touch And Go records, there was a less of a sonic shift with Down than a further streamlining of the band’s sound. This sonic consistency has somewhat hampered their legacy with no single album to rally around, and their abrasive sound and deep catalogue leaves no entry point for the uninitiated.

Four bonus tracks are once again tacked onto the end of the record. They include “Fly On The Wall” B-side “White Hole” and “Glamourous” and “Deaf As A Bat,” the two studio tracks from the 1992 Lash EP as well as “Panic In Cicero,” their contribution to the Clerks soundtrack.

These reviews originally appeared at Chartattack.com

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