The Cutthroats 9

(Man’s Ruin)
by Brian Varney

Noisy, distorted blues-hate-rock from one of the Unsane guys. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard anything by Unsane, but I remember that album cover with the decapitated guy laying on the train tracks. I suppose that’s the way I always figured they’d sound, and, based on this record, I can’t imagine I was too far from the mark.

Everything’s noisy and distorted (vocals included) so that it kinda sounds like a halfway point between Led Zeppelin and Raw Power-era Stooges. In other words, dirty, mean, and mighty unclean. Fairly fertile territory, this, but too many of the bands who’ve ventured here in the past have taken the easy way out, succumbing to the art-clang thing (see Pussy Galore). Luckily for us, there’s none of that here. The screamed-hoarse vocals sit slightly atop the din and, every now and then, a guitar solo comes screaming from the maelstrom, threatening to run down any and all in its path. This is noisy, yes, but always with a purpose, that purpose being to rock.

No catchy tunes here, but the songs are constructed in a way that affords the rather massive guitar riffs maximum physical impact, and I really wouldn’t want it any other way. This rocks, it slams, it bludgeons. Play it loud enough and you may be the guy missing his head.
(610 22nd Street #302 San Francisco, CA 94107)