Reviews

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Unsane - Blood Run

Blood Run

Unsane

Relapse

2005

The new album from New York's premier noise rock trio, Unsane, is a promising affair. Blood Run simply put, oozes aggression, violent musical structures, and the kind of sick, twisted song writing you haven't heard since Big Black.

My major gripe is that the drumming is pretty lack-lustre. For a noise rock band, you would expect there to be the kind of mental, messed up drumming that is so characteristic of others in the same ilk: Shellac, the Jesus Lizard, etc. But no, it's a bog standard performance as far as the drumming goes, they don't even sound that good.

That leaves it to the bass, guitar and vocals to lift the game, which thankfully they do. The guitar cuts and slams, a claw hammer in your skull, downtuned so far it sludges and flaps around. The bass thunders along, a concrete slab of low end, busting your chest, a brick in your face. Sometimes this music is like being in Fight Club.

It's a dark, torid album - nasty, remorseless. It's good to throw a thick piece of horrible vinyl on the turntable and have some bunch of maniacs scream their guts out at you for a good half hour. Unsane may not be the kings of noise rock any more, but they know all the tricks and they can still carve it up with the rest of em.

Review - Kenny Mooney