Step 1: The foundation. Gnarled, thick, twisted bass and pounding, huge, thunderous drums.
Step 2: The walls. Blistering, ear-slicing, brain-melting guitar.
Step 3: The paint. Forceful, well placed but not over the top vocals.
Step 4: The roof blown off. Turn volume up to "fucking loud".
Follow these steps and you will achieve damn near perfect noisy rock. The problem is that almost no one does it like this anymore.
What we have here first is Head of David's White Elephant. Made up of the first two Peel Sessions. The first, from '86, features the original lineup with drummer Paul Sharp. Jack Nicholson and Metal Texas Psych-Out are songs not available elsewhere and Pierced All Over would end up recorded for the incredible Dustbowl LP in a fairly different arrangement. The second session, from '87, features the Dustbowl lineup with Justin Broadrick on drums and features four songs that got recorded for Dustbowl. Bugged and Tequila are pretty much as they are on Dustbowl but Snake Domain and Skindrill are somewhat different with more driving drums. Both sessions are more raw than the studio material. The '86 session is interesting as it shows them moving from the more spacey, psyched out stuff of the first album to the harder, more uptempo style of Dustbowl.
Head of David - White Elephant
Next we have the Saveana Mixes. I know very little about the origin of this ep. It contains three alternate mixes of tracks on Dustbowl and an outtake. Apparently these were the primary mixes and they got lost or some such thing. I've really no idea. Interesting that it does say "Engineered by John Fryer" when Dustbowl was recorded by Albini. Maybe they are Fryer's mixes. Either way, this release is astounding. The mix of Bugged is similar to the LP but has a much more full lively tone, the guitars are pushed back a bit but are very wide and the vocals are more present. In fact all three alt mixes are like that. In addition 108 has totally different drums at the beginning and the way the guitars are mixed here suits the song better. Adrenicide is remarkably different. It is much fuller. The LP version has an intentionally(?) weird, thin mix. It's ok but not my favorite track on the LP. This mix sounds huge and much less tweaked and warped. It sounds immense. The real treat here though is "Bad Times", the outtake. Why this was not on the album I'll never understand, unless it really was lost. It would fit perfectly as the album closer with it's slower tempo, spacey "verse" section and huge chorus. Really one of the best Head of David tracks.
Head of David - Saveana Mixes
Enjoy!
P.S. - If you are hearing Head of David for the first time here please, I beg of you, avoid their final album. It's called Seed State. Just don't do it. Unless you like run of the mill, sub par, industial rock. Front Line Assembly lite. Really lite. Ick.
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