Review #174: Big Black - Lungs (EP) (1982)

LUNGS (EP)

Year: 1982
Genre: Post-Punk
Label: Ruthless Records
Tracks: 6
Length: 20 Minutes
Style: Angry
My Rating: 5/8

Big Black was a band that formed in 1981 in Evanston, Illinois. Steve Albini, the frontman and main member of the band joined the Chicago punk scene in his college years, and the first incarnation of Big Black featured Steve singing and playing guitar with a Roland drum machine supplying the beats, due to being unable to find a drummer. Big Black was somewhat apart of the hardcore scene, but the music of Big Black progressed further beyond the conventions of hardcore and aside from the already unique-sounding electronic drumbeats, the music was very much influenced by '70s and early '80s post-punk, new wave, and no-wave, and very noisy and avant-garde sounding as well. Steve recorded his first Big Black EP all by himself during a spring break and this wuz the result.

1. Steelworker
The lyrics are really really good. The beat is slow, and the guitar melody reminds me of a creepy spiderweb being spun. The song also uses imagery alluded to a hunter chasing down his food and killing it. GREAT BIG THING, CRAWLIN' ALL OVER ME.

2. Live in a Hole
This one's a bit faster. The beat sounds like a gunshot! The guitar sound is fizzly and freaktastic. The song describes a man who digs in a hole for a living to be able to live and works so much that his hole is practically his home. I think, at least. The melody is pretty interesting. There's some saxophone, also.

3. Dead Billy
Weird synth melody on this song. Slow like "Steelworker". I'm not entirely sure what this one's about... my mind's a little cloudy today, but there's a lot of reference to war and vietnam and pedophilia; perhaps 'Dead Billy' is a soldier in Vietnam who sexually abuses a girl and then kills her. Pretty fucked-up, in that regard. End of Side 1.

4. I Can Be Killed
The lyrics here are almost as psycho as the last song! The beat is a lot faster and there's a neat electric-sounding New Wave melody with a little noise interspliced as well. That seriously is a really cool melody. Maybe it's a guitar with a weird effect. Could be both, man! Steve's voice sounds a little creepy, here.

5. Crack
Reminds me a lot of "I Can Be Killed", musically. The lyrics are more spoken here, and it describes somebody whose life is finally working out well, only for everything to fall apart into shambles. Maybe the sadness of being rejected, or something like that. DUN-NUH!

6. RIP
This song sounds a lot like the type of songs that would be heard on the next two EPs, "Bulldozer" and "Racer-X". It kinda sounds like it's about the government wanting to kill the poor to clear out overpopulation, and how they view the poor as "dirty" and "not looking quite right". I might be wrong, that's my guess. It's the shortest song, though.

Well, that's "Lungs" by Big Black. I've only started listening to Big Black recently, but this is a pretty good EP. I don't like it as much as "Bulldozer" or "Racer-X", but it iz still good, especially inspiring to know it was recorded by just one person! I guess early editions of this album came with all sorts of random goodies included, like razor blades, blood, hair, Public Image Limited concert tickets, squirt-guns, condoms, and other great things like that! It's like an angrier, more sick version of New Wave music, and they say it preceded the whole industrial rock thing as well, which sounded a bit similar to this sort of music. Steve Albini has gone on to be a figurehead in the underground music scene, so yes, I guess this makes this EP somewhat of an important release. The end.

Top 3 Favorites:
1. I Can Be Killed
2. Live in a Hole
3. Dead Billy