PainKiller (2) – Buried Secrets

This is a challenging album which often seems to keep structure solely by seat-of-the-pants luck, yet there seems to be definite deliberation behind the music. All members seem to contribute equal measure to the music (JOHN ZORN on alto sax & vocals; BILL LASWELL on bass, and MICK HARRIS on drums form the nucleus, with GODFLESH's JUSTIN BROADRICK on guitar, drum machine & vocals; G.C.GREEN on bass appearing on the title track & "The Toll"). And into which category does this music fit? I'd term it experimental, progressive Jazz with hints of Rock, Industrial & Dub Reggae, all melded into a dangerous but magnificent beast.
"Tortured Souls" - what an appropriate title - opens the album. I remember the first time I heard this - ony a couple of days after hearing the COXHILL / FRITH live track (which I thought had tortured the poor sax to the point of death) - thinking 'the only way you could force noises like that out of an instrument would be to gang-sodomise the thing with sharpened Rhino horns'. After several listns, I doubt I could describe it any better. MICK's drumming smacks around like a berzerker having an epileptic fit, seeming to drive the torturers ever onward. "One-Eyed Pessary" has more structure, all three musicians filling the air with a restless music which changes shape, tempo & direction at the drop of a hat - a thick grungy sound with the sax fairly laid-back & mellow. "Trailmaker" lasts but three seconds, a cry for help from the Dungeon Dimension. "Blackhole Dub" has WOBBLE-like bass from BILL LASWELL which is perhaps even a degree deeper & darker than the Bassmeister's. MICK HARRIS proves his love of Dub with tight drumming & ZORN's sax flows between mellowy, drifty sound and something brittle, spikey with razor-teeth. "Buried Secrets" opens with a mangled mess of noise, a cacophony of sounds which form into a tight piece around 3 minutes into it, and is one of the more distinctive, tuneful pieces here, although I doubt you could whistle it. BROADRICK's guitar offers yet another dimension to the sound, which still remains PAINKILLER's own. "The Ladder" is another short piece, clocking in at 22 seconds - a manic, thunderous thrash-out thing. "Executioner" varies it's style throughout, opening by sounding as if it were about to become Dub, then spinning off at a dense, thrash-out angle, a massive wall of well-structured sound which dies away in apparent animal pain, again rising with the sax scribbling tiny hieroglyphs upon the air, then collapsing in destruction like a giant robot swan (theoretical), falling from the sky to eager firmament. "Black Chamber" rolls on dark, thunderous drums while cool sax surfs over the top, reforming into another deep dub-like piece with the bassso low it might just be coming from below the Earth itslf, up through the viscera in dark caress. "Skinned" again clocks under a minute, and is a huge thing, a rising thundercloud of noises, gelling into a mad, screaming & kicking thrash-out harkening towards Metal. "The Toll" closes the album, a much slower, darker, more menacing thing, a slow, barely structured piece which soars & screams, held together by the bass & drums which act as dramati punctuation. The vocalist has a voice so grizzled & ragged you'd think he must drink gasoline & eat ground glass. This is the closest piece to either GODFLESH or SCORN yet you still think it's unique - a more moody piece to draw the album to a conclusion.

A raucous album but full of dark, rich gold. The one thing you do feel is, that however good the studio album sounds (and this is powerful stuff), they would be killers on stage!

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.