It’s been suggested that in the eighties, ugliness and perversion as an aesthetic became a prized commodity among ex-punk rockers for its scarcity, and consequently, bands like Big Black and Swans et al. mined some hideous musical depths because they knew no one else would do it for them. Concurrently, the base and the rude felt more essential, even more spiritually awake, than whatever profligate glitter-pop dominated the era. We might be experiencing such a famine of filth presently, but the pendulum has a way of swinging back. Ever since David Yow joined Qui, noise rock has been sneaking back into the public consciousness. Evidently, what the world needs now is scree, sweet scree. I, for one, couldn’t be happier because it means more bands like Black Elk. Black Elk are not the word made flesh, but they are the flesh made fleshier. For anyone who may have dozed through Pissed Jeans last album, I submit to you Black Elk’s self-titled debut.
They’re a Portland, Oregon group who sound as if they subsist on truckers speed, the Jesus Lizard, and Twinkies. If you want proof listen to the panoramic beatdown “Eyebone.” One track is called “Dylan Klebold.” They’re crass, man, in bad taste. Let’s be on the same page about this: It isn’t metal, it isn’t hardcore. It’s a bunch of angry fellows with an ugliness fetish. If they were your roommates, Black Elk would use your CDs as coasters, steal your condoms, and make your toothbrush mysteriously smell like asshole. Who took a dump in this empty pizza box and then left it on the table? Black Elk did.
The songs on their debut album are crossbred, post-hardcore bastards spawned from Converge’s frothing structures and the Dazzling Killmen’s chops. Whiffs of late-period Black Flag come through in atonal chugging and feedback. Riffs uncoil lustily like swamp roots. The, uhm, “singer” rasps and bellows like a man possessed, and sometimes says “Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!” in a really exhilarating way, as he does on “Cuddles.” The entire affair is revelry in devilry that has me thinking about experiments using sonic frequencies to create severe behavioral disturbances. You may take comfort in the fact that moshing alone in your room is pretty much involuntary. So charge up your tazers, grease the pigs, fasten your dentures and shave your daughters because this business is comin’ ta gitcha.
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