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Fuckface
This album has been sitting on a shelf for 15 years but it sounds as vital today as it would have had it seen the light of day back then. Featuring the kind of rhythm section that can be charted on the Richter scale and pose the danger of serious structural damage, this is one of the best "lost" albums to surface in recent years.
 
Fuckface’s massive sound was down to their penchant for drummers. A quick glance at the list of players on this album makes them look like Spinal Tap but all these percussionists were playing at the same time. The primordial power of the beats was reinforced by the group’s refusal to use snare drums or cymbals; the only concession to something remotely like cymbals was Karl Paloucek’s use of junk metal which was always more indebted to Einstürzende Neubauten than to any drummer with a standard kit. "L.A. Song" barrels out of the speakers and steamrolls over the listener, the thumping percussion driving some glorious buzzsaw guitars and Dave Szolwinski’s vocals.
The group continue their assault across the album with tracks like "Thorn" and "Snitch" pummeling us senseless. "White of the Eye" is a swampy mess of growling guitar work which implodes into a fantastic extended quote of The Stooges’ "T.V. Eye;" all the menace of The Stooges amplified and exaggerated through Fuckface’s lens. "Black House" sees Fuckface slow down considerably as they generate a massive, defiant noise: "It’s my house and you can’t make me go!"
The album finishes with a recording of a riot that occurred during a Black Sabbath show in Milwaukee in 1980. The disturbing shift from audible annoyance and discontent to outright violence is captured with impressive quality. I know this has been long available as a novelty bootleg but it is unclear whether any member of the band played a part in recording it or whether they were there (Fuckface were based in Milwaukee, after all). In any case, it acts as a crushing closer to the album; the weight of mob violence going hand in hand with Fuckface’s pounding music.
As well as the original album, this CD also contains a bunch of bonus tracks including both sides of their Thorn 7" (although no other previously released material is included). The bonus tracks maintain the standard set by the main album and apart from the case of "Buffalo Bill" which surpasses everything else on this album. A tribute to the serial killer of the same name in Silence of the Lambs, co-opts one the film's best lines as the chorus: "It puts the lotion on its body, it will eat its food or it will get the hose!"
It is a shame it has taken it so long to make it out of storage and into my ears.
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