here is the NFO file from Indietorrents
– Release Info ————————————————————– –
Artist: The Jesus Lizard
Album: Down
Label: Touch & Go Records
Playtime: 52:16 min
Genre: Rock
URL: http://www.touchandgorecords.com
Rip date: 2009-10-02
Street date: 2009-10-06
Size: 80.34 MB
Type: Remastered
Quality: 195 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo– Release Notes ————————————————————- –
The Jesus Lizard is one of the most amazing rock bands of the 90’s that still
got overlooked by most people and critics. I am very happy to present these
deluxe remasters so us old fucks can rediscover this incredible band, and so
the kids can get a good history lesson as well. The "Down" reissue features 4
bonus tracks from the Clerks soundtrack and 2 rare 7"’s.– Track List —————————————————————- –
01. Fly On The Wall ( 3:06)
02. Mistletoe ( 1:53)
03. Countless Backs Of Sad Losers ( 2:59)
04. Queen For A Day ( 2:25)
05. The Associate ( 5:01)
06. Destroy Before Reading ( 3:13)
07. Low Rider ( 3:36)
08. 50¢ ( 2:49)
09. American BB ( 2:18)
10. Horse ( 3:10)
11. Din ( 3:18)
12. Elegy ( 3:49)
13. The Best Parts ( 2:54)
14. Untitled ( 0:10)
15. White Hole ( 3:21)
16. Glamorous ( 3:07)
17. Deaf As A Bat ( 1:39)
18. Panic In Cicero ( 3:28)– ————————————————————————— –
While not unwelcome, this batch of Jesus Lizard reissues come as a surprise. After all, these albums were still available and in print. In terms of needing remastering, the CD wasn’t exactly a young or uncharted medium at the time, and the guy recording them, Steve Albini, is generally regarded to know what he’s doing behind the boards. I’m starting to think that the reissue craze is less about keeping music on the shelves (which is arguably not an issue these days) and more about reminding overwhelmed listeners that records even exist. If someone were to tell me something sounded wrong with the old versions, I would have recommended that the listener locate their volume knob and turn it clockwise.
But then again…the new digipacs and their fold-out inserts for these records look great, and the remastering job was done by Bob Weston (Shellac) and Albini himself. The bonus tracks included are sparse, but are carefully chosen from singles, soundtracks, and live performances. They’re separated by a track of silence from the rest of the record, but their additions make sense in the context of each album. Without analyzing each song’s waveform, the drums seem a little louder now (rarely if ever a bad thing), and certain moments may pop out a little more, like the atonal feedback in "Seasick" that sounds like it may swallow your whole head when heard through headphones. If these reissues needed to be done, then they did them right, and if people really need reminding, so be it: At their best, the Jesus Lizard created some of the best rock records of the 1990s.
Head lacks some the high points of later records, save for the essential "Killer McHann", but it shows the pieces in place from the beginning– especially the fearsome rhythm section that asserts itself from the opening moments of "One Evening" and throughout. "If You Had Lips" also marks the beginning of the satanic rodeo rhythm that would suit them so well throughout their career, often shaking up the second sides of their later albums (see Goat’s "South Mouth" or Liar’s "Rope"). The CD reissue includes the Pure EP (as the 1992 CD did), as well as the "Chrome" single and live versions of "Bloody Mary" and "Killer McHann". Guitarist Duane Denison himself calls the album transitional in the new liner notes, and while he’s being a little modest, Head can’t help but sound a bit thin compared to what would come afterward.
Enter Goat, at a lean and ferocious nine tracks. Singer David Yow is his usually expressive self here: His vocals are tense, funny, and occasionally terrifying, from bullhorn-ready hollering to howls of anguish if the song calls for it. Sometimes he’s just making muffled slurping noises, often multi-tracked and through both ears, like some supernatural character in a David Lynch film. Yet it’s funny to think that despite how depraved the lyrics may have been (see "Lady Shoes" from this album, among many, many others), Yow’s most enduring epithet may be calling someone a "mouth breather." It might have something to do with the track itself, with its elastic, repetitive riff snapping back and forth under Yow’s wails and backhanded insults. The appended live version of "Seasick" from 1992 has crowd members audibly calling out for the song moments before it’s played, showing how their reputation had been solidified– and while one song here is called "Seasick", the whole record is unpredictable and queasy. Yow and Denison steal the show here somewhat, but the vicious bob of the rhythm section on "Monkey Trick" goes way beyond a memorable moment; it’s a reason to get up in the morning.
Goat and Liar show the band at the obvious peak of their powers. It’s splitting hairs to call one record that much better than the other, though Liar’s second half is a little slower and moodier than the tour-de-force of the first side. (In fairness, what record wouldn’t start to go downhill after something like "Puss"?) The start of "Boilermaker" is like coming out of a blackout to find yourself in the middle of a bar fight. It’s weird to hear a moment of nothing but the rhythm section for even a few seconds on the track’s bridge– for most of side one, the band are become one singular, heaving thing; the band is completely in step with one another as Yow is free to bellow, wail and hiss over it all.
You can’t overestimate Duane Denison’s contribution to these records. Few guitarists in rock this side of Thurston Moore or Gang of Four’s Andy Gill did as much to tear down and reimagine the form. His sound on these records is jagged, minimal, and instantly recognizable. It’s hard to pick just one example, but listen to "Puss" from Liar, as he uses a wah pedal to make the guitar sound like a hive of angry wasps, and then finds a glassy, piano-like tone in the bridge to let out arpeggios over a rhythm ready for a strip club. Even outside of his tone and feel, the balance he struck between blues-inspired riffs, punk catharsis, and general dissonance is nearly without peer.
Down is a little less celebrated than the earlier records– I don’t know how many fans were looking to the Jesus Lizard for subtlety and nuance, but Down shows they were ready for it as musicians. Not to say it isn’t heavy, from the swaggering descending riff of "Fly on the Wall" to oddly melodic bruisers like "Destroy Before Reading" and "American BB". But if the jazzy leanings of tracks like "The Associate" don’t throw you, then Yow’s earnest croon on "Elegy" indicates they were ready to mature– and honestly, as they lost very little of their tempo or edge, they were doing it in all the right ways here.
When people continue to mention Chicago in the early 90s or Touch and Go Records as a brand, they often start with these records. It’s worth noting band members hail from Texas– once home to Roky Erickson, Willie Nelson, and Butthole Surfers– and Austin is a great place to nurture an individualist streak. Moreover, by the time the Jesus Lizard would release Down, their fourth album, Touch and Go and its subsidiaries were already becoming too diverse a label to be summed up by a handle like "pigfuck" or any other name lobbed by journalists at bands like the Jesus Lizard, Shellac, Killdozer, or the many others from that decade. And yet, whenever I try to think of one representative sound for that small pocket of gnashing geniuses, it’s the sound of drummer Mac McNeilly and bassist David Sims locking in on the band’s heavy, inimitable groove that they perfected over these four records.
For all the breathless praise, the Jesus Lizard weren’t necessarily the loudest or the most twisted band out there, or had the singer that exposed himself the most often. (Well, maybe the last one is true.) And that’s not why we still talk about these records. Their aggression was taut, minimal, and artful. Even amidst the controlled chaos of "Boilermaker", they hold back for a delicious blink-and-you’ll-miss-it full-band rest in the song’s final moments, one of countless examples where they asserted themselves as musicians– not a sideshow– in all these tracks.
The band thrived in the underground of the 90s, and from the freedom of Touch and Go in particular; under pressure from no one but themselves, the Jesus Lizard raised a bar that few bands have reached since (and, for whatever reason, one they struggled to reach themselves after migrating to Capitol Records after Down). They were raucous and heavy without the rigidity of later hardcore or the meat-headedness of metal; they played art-rock that actually rocked. There’s no shortage of good stories about David Yow’s stage behavior, which you can swap with those who were really there or just read them from the new liner notes. But there are so many more reasons to pick up these records– including Yow’s talent as a singer and lyricist. Rarely does a band have each member adding something essential to such a united, ferocious whole. (Zeppelin gets mentioned more than once in the new liners; it’s not much of a stretch.) It’s why after a decade, they’re welcome back.
— Jason Crock, October 27, 2009