His stertorous zzz’s wafted lazily about the zoom as his chest rose ’n’ fell in the deep idiocy of sleep, he dreamt he was lying stark naked in the midway of a vast, empty video arcade, watching as a pair of gigantic metallic lips floated down ever gently from yellowish-grey skies, getting nearer and nearer until they planted a moist, oily, maddeningly unnerving kiss upon his rumpled brow. An r.e.m. blink and yet another dreamscape unfolded: this time he found himself seated at his typewriter, which kept taking on the appearance of some great, slow moving crustacean, annoyingly grinning at him like Alice’s Cheshire Cat. A myriad of thought-blebs pranced about his head, and, looking up from his typewriter now and then, he’d flick out a long, silver-gloved tongue and gobble down a few of them. Miraculously, paragraphs began to form where once there was nothing more than blank white space...
(You see, even rock writers have dreams. I mean trying to say something either interestingly humorous or substantially nasty month after month about albums that can generally be nutshelled as either good and worth buying or bad and not worth buying ain’t as easy as it sounds. Sometimes, it weighs quite heavily on the mind. But enough of this...)
I actually did have that dream the other day, and anytime I dream about a band, something’s gotta be making all the circuits click. Most of the time, in my metallectual snobbery, I dismiss the “hardcore” sound as nothing more than a begrudgingly necessary mishmash of archeosonics laced with too-cool polemics and arriviste hodads who are constantly screaming at the tops of their lungs, about how they find mere existence a hammer and tongs bore. So what else is new? But that’s metallectually speaking; most other times I find hardcore rather comforting. And my comfort increases when I come across bands like Hüsker Du and Saint Vitus, both primordially metallic, and both playing a kind of soft, refined hardcore easily accessible to Joe Average listener--believe it or not!
Hüsker Du’s double LP--my god, a hardcore double album! Will wonders never cease?--Zen Arcade, is a wide-ranging collection of noisescapes which bracingly encompass not only the broody aspects of hardcore but also its lighter (and this is important), more experimental aspects. On the broody, let’s-stare-down-the-cleavage-of-doom-and-despair side are things like “Newest Industry,” “Whatever,” and “Masochism World,” and on the lighter, more experimental (a.k.a. psychedelic) side there’s “Dreams Reoccurring” and the almost side-long “Reoccurring Dreams,” the latter a track that takes overt rudeness into truly new realms closely akin to such long-ago rude epics as “Baby Please Don’t Go” by the Amboy Dukes and the Electric Prunes’ “You Never Had It Better,” as well as those never to be forgotten, endless drum solos of the 70s.
Saint Vitus, on the other hand, is decidedly metal in its sound. This is the only band I’ve ever heard that’s come even close to capturing the sound of Black Sabbath’s Paranoia, which makes Saint Vitus a definite eyebrow raiser in my book. These guys have the required long hair and hippyized looks and play music that makes even Mötorhead sound slick. Noteworthy doomtoons here include “The Psychopath,” “Burial At Sea,” and my personal fave rave, “Zombie Hunger,” a metal munching smooch so utterly dripping with leering evil intent that should they ever traipse into video land George Romero should definitely be consulted. This song makes Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” sound like “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” I really like this record; it makes me wanna eat baby heads and shoot pool with the collective testicles of Yes. Arrrggghh. Later, fellow skull-munchers--much later.
Get your own Free Home Page