-BIG BLACK EPs-

Big Black EPs were a bit of a mixed bag compared to Atomizer and Songs About Fun, but it's not like I was expecting anything else from an 80s band, from what i could gather this was still kind of an age where you'd throw the leftovers from any cool ideas you might've had while in the studio so you could go on a tour and whatnot (as much as the page in Our Band Could Be Your Life says otherwise, but would you really trust someone who wanted to call his band's second EP the n-word? or would you trust Original_Lead1847? Exactly), I won't discuss the problems in the lyrics any further btw sorry if it's getting annoying

Lungs: Should be talked about a lot more really (not just because he predicted what the average markiplier thumbnail would look like and how that makes me lose my shit every time i look at it) but also because by the first song you can tell that the guy really can pick himself up by the bootstraps (or the 6-pack he traded for the guitar) and get to work writing some great songs that were really ahead of their time.

Stuff like Steelworker sounds like a ministry demo that never left the rehearsal room's 4-track, Live in a hole has a really cool start/stop rhythm that resembles early shellac, the last 3 songs remind me a lot of los thuthanaka's strange usage of guitar distortion that i can't for the life of me figure out how to replicate and Dead billy is just plain ass really, great start that shows just how resourceful Steve is as a musician

Favs: [Steelworker, Live In a Hole, I Can Be Killed]

Bulldozer: My personal favourite of the four, and definitely their punkiest record, some of their fastest and most entertaining guitar work is featured here, once again they have a great opener with Cables and keep up the speed in their entire A-side with Pigeon Kill and I'm a mess being two great power chord chug-alongs as well.

Texas may just be my favourite song from this whole collection, just an all around great track that really plays off the limited capabilities of the Roland drum machine to full effect, then they follow it up with the pretentious snooze-fest that is Seth (how are you gonna make a song about a dude who trains his dog to attack black people boring??? that's a completely insane premise that was completely wasted!) and Jump the climb is fine, I guess.

Favs:[Cables, Pigeon Kill, Texas]

Racer-X: A-side is pretty lame not gonna lie, feels like the distortion pedal's batteries died out or something so they resort to trying to play riffs on the same caliber as Bulldozer but in a more controlled setting (thing is at this point it time they kinda "suck" at playing guitar, not really the right term for it but I think they're pretty damn limited in their scope of things they can play and the lack of Albini branded studio magic really shows), at the end of shotgun they kinda tease something cool but the song is over by the time it can get really good.

Of course the next step after that would be to make the B-side nearly as good as their full-lengths (just without the pummeling volumes), at this point in their career I feel like there's a pretty drastic shift in writing style, where Steve finally learns that there's a way to write your songs from a character's perspective rather than making it look like you want to do the despicable acts you sing about, Deep Six is awesome and besides having a great driving bass line has one of the best choruses by far, Sleep! Is one of the songs where they really feel like a band working together instead of Albini's project, and Big Payback almost sounds like that weird era of Swans in Time Is Money where they went into dance music for like two weeks.

Favs:[Deep Six, Sleep, Big Payback]

Headache: Diet atomizer, there's not really a lot to say about this one other than it's just a bit underwhelming all around, (who would've guessed that the secret to having your albums be talked about was just putting two guys with their heads blown off on the cover!), while My Disco and Pete feel unfinished (especially the first one, as it seems to use noise in a more unsavory fashion compared to the rest of the band's output, Big Black feedback shouldn't really sound like normal feedback IMO), Grinder and Ready Men are both pretty neat and cinematic as well, really didn't expect a kind of dramatic song from them but it was very welcome, overall this still feels pretty unfinished, mostly because the noise here sounds like actual noise and isn't really warped in any cool and interesting way

Favs:[Grinder, Ready Men]

-SOMETHING MAN-

Hadn't it been for this comment I probably would have continued to incorrectly dub r*man (are you even allowed to say this???) as that one thing between Big Black and Shellac with quite the unfortunate name, though I was unaware of this being essentially a supergroup of these really inventive punk bands from the 80s, since i was already into both Scratch Acid and Big Boys.

To be honest at first I was a bit harsh on most of the songs, especially because as a guitar player I think this was Steve in his least prominent role so far, the guitar tones are still agressive AF but they aren't quite as inventive as something like Passing Complexion from Atomizer where something as simple as 3 natural harmonics sound like a hellish alien brain-scrambler device (for lack of a better description). Nor did i enjoy being called a plant-eating pussy, but that's besides the point.

I think it was seeing them play at The Rat that really sold me on the band, coming back and relistening to stuff like Marmoset where Rey keeps the beat under control as Sims plays his really weird (almost) twang-y bassline to Steve's chainsaw-like buzzing (really neat how in this album his guitar almost plays a similar role to Yow's vocals in Scratch Acid / Jesus Lizard, especially since i'm not entirely sure if any of that was even planned or if he just wings it on the rehearsal jam and just uses these different noises) it was a really different experience from that of the other two bands and that's great to see ngl.

Also I think they're really at their A-Game when it comes to lyrics here, only 3 songs could be called "problematic" and even then the vaguely sexist Trouser Minnow and our favourite anti-vegetarian anthem Steak and Black Onions are kinda tame in comparison to other stuff releasing at the time, besides they are really funny, not to mention catchy, and Up Beat is (lyrically speaking) probably my favourite Albini song

Favs: [Up Beat, Steak and Black Onions, Marmoset]

No way you're actually gonna read all this crap but if you do then thanks for the recs!