Atomizer [LP]

Big Black: Steve Albini (vocals, guitar); Santiago Durango (guitar); Dave Riley (bass).
Listening to ATOMIZER is a truly unpleasant experience-just as Big Black intended. For the band's first full-length release, the sound has been honed down to the aural equivalent of a back-street dentist's drill. Piercing guitars drill into your molars while you are anesthetized by the incessant pounding of Roland, the group's primitive drum machine. Amongst the carnage, Steve Albini lets out his trademark throat-shredding howl. The bombardment doesn't let up once over the course of this hugely influential album. No wonder Nirvana, Pixies, and PJ Harvey later enlisted Big Black main man Albini's help in capturing their most raucous recordings.
Big Black famously didn't do love songs. Albini thought that the topic had been exhausted in pop music. Instead, ATOMIZER reeks of small-town claustrophobia and the impact it can have on twisted minds. The disco-thrash classic "Kerosene" recounts a tale of bored kids committing random acts of arson, while "Cables" sees thrill-seekers hanging out in a slaughterhouse. The subject matter of a couple of songs is genuinely shocking, but Albini seeks only to expose what he sees as the rotten underbelly of a bloated society. The picture he paints is not a pretty one, and ATOMIZER is not recommended for those of a nervous disposition.