ALBUM REVIEW: The Jesus Lizard – ‘Rack’

There are many routes to discovering The Jesus Lizard. But after doing just that, most listeners probably found themselves at a spaghetti junction, ready to find bands straddling punk, noise rock, alternative rock, or something else strange from the ’90s. Such is their influence that a return after a 26 year absence feels like a homecoming, in a scene they’ve never left, just observed pridefully from the sidelines. And for latter-fans that didn’t get to enjoy the original incarnation causing live carnage, but caught a JL shirt in Nope, saw the name and thought Jesus Lizard was a made-up joke phrase rather than an actual animal (me), or have since loved the likes of Chat Pile or Couch Slut, Rack is a refreshed remodel of the band that left us all too soon in 1998.

This reinvigoration feels like poetic justice considering the chequered story of the Touch And Go noise-punk legends. Despite never being in the limelight, JL were that group you needed to see. At least, your favourite band would say that. Even after releasing Puss on a split with zeitgeist behemoths Nirvana, they got paid by Capitol to not release an album, got dropped, and saw the end in sight after losing original (yet returning) drummer Mac McNeilly. And no matter what weird and wonderful ways the members scattered to—by ways of Tennessee libraries and tweed, apparently—the left-field mastery they concocted long ago feels very much welcomed again.

In the safe label hands of Ipecac (partly helmed by another of guitarist Duane Denison’s eccentric bandmates Mike Patton) Rack brings us back into the JL world through 11 cuts that have waited patiently to burst free. Track four, What If?, opens with David Yow’s in medias res “So, as I mentioned…”, probably not referring to former tracks that do not ponder its account of a nameless widow, but feels suggestive that their hodgepodge world is as matter-of-fact and deadpan as always. What the JL fans want then, surely, albeit with a vibe that skirts on film noir; it’s gloomy and mysterious rather than frantic. Denison’s picked up a few tricks in his time as a member of Beverley Knight’s band (?) and Tomahawk, among others, and even gets strangely flashy with hammer-on riffs and a dizzying shred solo on Grind.

Some things never change though; the rhythm section has not lost a shred of its telepathic groove. McNeil’s thunderous drumming and the punchy meandering basslines of David Wm. Sims steal the show on Hide & Seek—a song about a feral witch, of course, accompanied by Denison’s sarcastic take on jangle pop that sounds like the Jaws chalkboard scene and recalls 1991 hit Then Comes Dudley. Likewise, no matter the frivolous and unusual nature of the threesome’s playing, there has always existed a level of songwriting coherence that’s channelled here through crisp and bolshy production. Dunning Kruger has Denison deviating into tangents from a central three-chord theme. Is That Your Hand? feels, by their standards, like straightforward rock. This orderliness, due to its consistency, is surely intentional. After all, it serves perfectly well for Yow to do the absolute opposite.

In fact, closing with Swan the Dog (an unsettling cryptic nightmare that feels like four songs stitched together) feels like the band signing off with a wink, no bit in the least due to Yow going on about giving birth to a well-trained dog, wanting to clean people’s teeth, to masturbate and kill (in that order), or to open up a bakery. That told me about orderliness. The crudeness of it all has always been a weird sweet spot hit by Yow; you can’t help but feel delighted when he essential snots into your ear doing his darnedest drunk slurring barfly impression, as on the refrains on Moto(R) (featuring the oddly poetic phrase “fucking bouillabaisse”) or putting a novel twist on a Roy Orbison classic on Lord Godiva: “In dreams, I shoot my balls off every night” , finished with a gargle. As its name suggests, the singer makes traditional rhymes his mere plaything, morphing fairy tales about paupers into those of homicidal maniacs, ending each verse ditty with an old-songbird style “yeah” and talking about golden showers. They’re having fun with it, and I guess so are we.

Having already cultivated the ultimate JL experience with Goat and Liar (very suitably some of the late Steve Albini’s most loved collaborations), it’s rare to bring back any semblance of that vintage sound and attitude. They’ve not only done that fairly well, but it’s perhaps the greatest draw from Rack: four old mates that never quite got their due in their heyday wanting to rehearse, play, and record together again. They’re as locked in as ever (most obviously on Alexis Feels Sick), while some feel like quickly refashioned songs from an old storage locker (Armistice Day) all built for Yow to put his stamp on.

Luckily, he duly does, which adds a taste missing from many modern acts: utterly reckless abandon in delivery that’s hard to ignore. They’re clearly holding their own in a scene that’s continually growing out of the roots they laid with Rack, and that’s a breath of fresh air two decades in the making.

For fans of: Shellac, Chat Pile, Flipper

‘Rack’ by The Jesus Lizard is released on 13th September on Ipecac Records.

Words by Elliot Burr