The Jesus Lizard Reissues

The major labels who treat album reissues as just another way to cheaply recycle and profitably repackage an artist's most celebrated work could learn a thing or two from Touch and Go. Quite simply, the indie label's Jesus Lizard reissues are about as flawless as such releases can be. Though the timing of the label's campaign might make cynics take notice - the original releases aren't out of print, the remastering job by Steve Albini and Bob Weston isn't really noticeable and these reissues come at a time when a reformed Jesus Lizard is performing live to receptive audiences - the care and attention paid to these reissues more than offset any reservations listeners might have about shelling out for the albums. For those not familiar with the Jesus Lizard, the reissues will serve as an ideal overview of the band, while hardcore fans who know there is no better insult than calling someone a mouth-breather should be satisfied with the bonus tracks and the releases' overall aesthetic.

Enough clever metaphors have been used over the years to describe Goat and Liar to make additional commentary redundant. It's enough to say that both albums contain the band's blend of deranged vocals and scathing, stop-start arrangements at their most precise and tense; filled with ugly sentiments and even uglier characters, these albums remain essential pieces of 1990s indie rock. Only a fool would bother to argue that one album is significantly stronger than the other. If this reissue series suggests anything, it's that the records that bookended Goat and Liar deserve a bit more attention. Very few sane fans will argue that the Pure EP, Head and final Touch and Go album Down belong in the same class as Goat and Liar; still, these less-celebrated releases have aged remarkably well and offer traces of the sound the band perfected on those two classic albums. Though Yow's vocals don't quite have the maniacal frenzy of tracks like "Boilermaker," "Seasick," "Karpis" or "Rope" and the EP sometimes exposes a tentative vocalist, the singer's guttural howls and strangled cries on "Bloody Mary," "Starlet" and "Killer McHann" are the stuff of loony bins and state penitentiaries and hint at the unhinged and uncontrolled vocal spasms Yow would employ throughout Goat and Liar.

In contrast the band's taut and sharp arrangements in many ways were solidified early on; starting with Head and continuing through Down, the three-man wrecking crew of David Wm. Sims, Mac McNeilly and Duane Denison delivered music free of frills, extraneous notes or other needless diversions. Of course, the most focused and violently concise songs are found on Goat and Liar, but early songs like "Good Thing," "Waxeater" and "One Evening" all bear the trio's machine-like efficiency. Select tracks from the erratic Down - with its relatively audible vocals and somewhat polished sound, it's arguably the band's most straightforward record - likewise feature the trio's propulsive rhythms and textures. The contrast between Yow's meandering vocals and the band's exact instrumentals still sounds jarring and disorienting.

If there are any complaints to be made, it's that each disc includes a scant number of bonus tracks and that a complete live show might have been preferable to the few live songs captured here. Yet these drawbacks are minor and forgivable. Yow sings like an untreated schizophrenic on live versions of "Bloody Mary," "Killer McHann," "Seasick," "Lady Shoes" and "Monkey Trick;" perfunctory demos of "Dancing Naked Ladies," "Gladiator" and "Boilermaker" are nevertheless intriguing and Down is rounded out with four tracks that would have fit in nicely on that album, particularly "Glamorous" and "Deaf as a Bat." Each reissue is nattily packaged with vintage photos, reproductions of posters, ticket stubs and other miscellany and anecdotes and ramblings from Yow, McNeilly and Denison. Even the requisite mythologizing essays are worth reading, even if the authors' somewhat-fawning superlatives stop just short of arguing that the band could turn shit to gold.

Ultimately, what we're left with is a heavyweight band whose records now get to take the victory lap they were never afforded in the '90s, at least commercially. Goat and Liar still stand as the band's finest works, but for those interested in diving into the aggression and depravity of these songs, either for the first time or once again, all of these reissued albums are required listening.

Revisit: The Jesus Lizard: Liar

Sometimes an album inspires our most romantic and sentimental of sides. It makes a gray cloudy February sky sunny, makes crows sounds like melodious songbirds of love and makes a love-struck fool completely insufferable to anyone who crosses his merry path. It makes a man sit through that goddamn awful The Notebook for the eighth time and spend grotesque sums of money on dinner and drinks. It makes the object of his affection realize that at the end of the night, she's pretty much gonna have to give it up.
Liar is not that album. Released in 1992 by the Touch & Go label, The Jesus Lizard's third album stands as their best, a manic and deranged tromp through life's seediest back pages, mental insecurities, physical depravities, and psychopathic tendencies. It contains all the hallmarks that separate the band from all those industrial two-bit hack impersonators who would follow in their wake: David Yow's tortured and barely-understandable vocals, Duane Denison's jagged and pointed guitar work, and David Sims and Mac McNeilly's headache-inducing rhythmic backing. Though it lacks some of Goat's grime, sludge and sleaze, it straddles the line most effectively between the band's somewhat inaccessible early sound and the stylistic "progress" shown on their later Capitol releases. Though the makeup of Liar certainly isn't to everyone's liking - those who offend easily or like their music smooth, optimistic and incidental should stay the hell away - it is the band's most enduring work and also the best starting point for anyone with a passing interest in The Jesus Lizard.
The instrumentals on Liar leave no room for subtle textures or gray areas. Most songs are blasted out in relentless spurts and abrupt stops, the album's 10 songs crammed into 35 minutes of twitching agitation. Denison's guitar is unflinching and persistent, while the bass and drums pile on top and underneath to form something that's oddly noisy and melodic in a perverse way. Coupled with Yow's various shouts, yelps and screams the effect of this onslaught on the listener is disarming, especially on songs like "Boilermaker," "Puss" and "The Art of Self-Defense." Yet it's the arrangements' control and precision that separate it from that horrific glut of 1990s industrial/noise-rock albums that were vomited from countless dorm room speakers not so long ago. There are no wasted or extraneous notes here, a lack of such deviation suggesting that there was little room given for improvisation as the album was recorded. With the exception of the nearly six-minute "Zachariah," the album's tempo never really changes. An unforgiving and explosive machine-like efficiency dominates the album, but never does it sound manufactured, artificial or overly produced. There's also an interesting and slightly disparate contrast at play throughout the album, as Yow's unhinged and meandering vocals threaten to suffocate the band's pin-point but abrasive arrangements, most notably on "Gladiator."
What Yow does on Liar cannot be termed singing; it's a brutal massacre of anything even remotely soothing or comforting. A lot of cute metaphors that music journalists love to use have attempted to describe Yow's vocals over the years, most likely because they defy easy categorization. Easy descriptions aside- Yow as some type of street-corner religious madman or simply a stark raving lunatic - the vocals are about as subtle as tire iron upside the head. They're frequently incomprehensible, due to producer Steve Albini's now ubiquitous technique of burying them in the mix as well as Yow's determination to howl for a half hour like he's on borrowed time or hauling a corpse into the woods. The album starts with a grunt on "Boilermaker" and devolves from there, with Yow spitting out sounds that sometimes roughly approximate English.
So what happens in these songs? Though a lyrics sheet is needed to fully make sense of what Yow is ranting about, enough words and phrases bleed through to realize that all sort of nasty shit's going down. Fingernails are torn off, sexual perversions are equally indulged and suppressed, drug and alcohol fueled-paranoia runs rampant, murder and suicide tear ass across the album, and the bodies keep piling up. Yet for all this mindless violence, the lyrics frequently show a truly strange and unsettling poetic rhythm and cadence, particularly on "Boilermaker" and the ambiguous murder/suicide graphically described in "Rope." The lyrics compliment the band's instrumentation and make obvious what Yow's garbled wails imply.
Now with The Jesus Lizard reformed and back to touring and recording new music, it's a good time to pound through their back catalog, even the late Capitol releases. Of course this album isn't for everyone; if its often graphic subject matter doesn't turn people away, its punishing sound likely will. Though a case could be made for its predecessor Goat, Liar is more focused in its musical approach and more jarring in its lyrical content. While other noise-rock bands have since been tossed into the shitbin of history as well as countless record store bargain bins, Liar is still required listening for music fans with even a passing interest in 1990s indie.