teamfreak16's Full Review: Locust Abortion Technician [Digipak] by Butthole S...
The Butthole Surfers formed in San Antonio, TX, in 1982 - and I'll wager that absolutely nothing you were listening to that year would have prepared you for the sonic onslaught these freaks were set to unleash upon an unsuspecting world. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; the world needs more bands like the Butthole Surfers. Combining elements of punk, metal, psychedelia, humor, filth, dirt, muck, and mire with an outstanding live show that can encompass everything from videos of crashing Volkswagen Beetle's to penis surgery to Angie Dickinson's Big Bad Mama - not to mention, I once saw them smash all their instruments as soon as they walked onstage at the very beginning of the show - the Butthole Surfers are one of the more entertaining bands to come down the pike since, well, ever. Their 3rd effort, 1987's Locust Abortion Technician is a noisy masterwork that really has to be heard to be believed.
Sweat Loaf is pretty much the epitome of the Butthole Surfers experience. It's a slamming piece of noisy perfection that sounds as if Jimi Hendrix had bumped into Black Sabbath one day and then organized a chaotic jam session after all had eaten their fill of acid, mescaline, and peyote - this after vocalist Gibby Haynes gives his "son" a pep talk about the fact that it's "better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done. And by the way, if you see your mother this weekend, be sure to tell her SATAN!" Yeah, it's bloody awesome, and your girlfriend or wife is 99.9% sure to hate it, which makes it that much better. Graveyard (both versions) takes the psychedelic factor and drags it down through several layers of muck despite the almost non-stop freaky guitar soling. And Pittsburgh to Lebanon sounds like the band paid a visit to the outskirts of Hell and returned with a new style of blues track.
Human Cannonball is probably the most straightforward piece of rock music on the CD - that's not saying it's still not bizarre - it's a hard-driving, bass-heavy mosh pit-inducer full of some ultra groovy lead guitar work and Gibby's enthusiastic singing and screaming. U.S.S.A., meanwhile, is pure chaos, with stomping guitar effects that sound as if they were run through about a hundred distortion pedals, while The O-Men shows off the band's punk chops - albeit in a very muddy, distorted, in-the-cesspool kind of presentation. Haynes also sings like a Muppet on speed, which only adds to the bedlam. And Kuntz is a Klezmer-influenced bit of Middle-Eastern chanting combined with various doctored vocals repeating the title long wise as "caant."
Basically, Locust Abortion Technician is a grand, glorious, chaotic, noisy mess - it's wonderful. If your familiarity of the Butthole Surfers begins and ends with their 1996 radio hit Pepper, this CD is going to shock your system beyond comprehension. There's absolutely nothing here that would suggest these guys would have ever gotten a track anywhere within a hundred miles of a commercial radio station, which is precisely why you need to hear it.
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