Big Black - Cables

One of my first meaningful introductions to heavy music was from Steve Albini’s seminal and short-lived punk rock band, Big Black. Big Black was able to obtain a level of musical extremity without the shrieked vocals or shredding guitar solos of heavy metal music. Instead, Albini achieved a level of ferocity with the monolithic pounding of a Roland TR-606 drum machine and clanging guitar which sounded less like traditional guitar and more like a buzzing sheen. To get this unique guitar sound, Albini would play with metal guitar picks adorned with small snips of sheet metal. Big Black used guitar as a way to create texture as opposed to using it as the melodic core of most rock bands. The vocal work is also not at the center of the songs, instead becoming another texture to mesh with the chaos of guitar noise and synthesized drumming. When I first heard Big Black, I had never heard anything quite like it, and I was completely enthralled.

Outside the intensity of the music Big Black was playing, the subject matter they were approaching was equally intense. They addressed the darker side of American culture, exploring issues like racism, misogyny, and violence, but often from the perspective of those committing these offenses. While this was their attempt to satirize these issues, the band was often strongly condemned for their songs’ lyrical content. One of my favorite Big Black songs, Cables, is about watching cattle being slaughtered in an abattoir. Albini grew up in Montana, and apparently teenagers would go to the slaughterhouse for entertainment.

If you have an interest in extreme music, you should give Big Black some of your time. Big Black was one of Steve Albini's first musical projects, though he is now best known as a record producer/audio engineer, who was responsible for recording many influential albums like Nirvana’s In Utero and the Pixies Surfer Rosa.

Buy Big Black's music here.