Search - Rapeman :: Two Nuns & A Pack Mule

Shame about the name, though.

Steve Luddington | Manchester, England. | 02/15/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"God I love this album so much. Let me just say here and now that I think their name is stupid, no matter how you try and justify it. Dumb name, great band.From start to finish its a belter, this one. Opening with the brooding discordant blues riffery of Steak and Black Onions and closing with the brutal and sarcastic Trouser Minnow, the pace only ever lets up once during their Sonic Youth pastiche Kim Gordon's Panties, presumably to ensure your brain doesn't go into meltdown. Coming at the end of what would have been side one on the original vinyl release, it allows the listener brief respite before the pummeling devastation of the second side. Featuring the talents of the infamous Steve Albini (guitar and screaming), David Wm Sims (bass) and Rey Washam (drummer probably on very bad terms with his neighbours) this band cooks. You can hear echoes of their sound in so many other bands; Slipknot, In Utero-era Nirvana,the Jesus Lizard (featuring Sims) and of course Shellac (Albini's current pet project), to name but a very obvious few. Tight, funky, bestial and far more aggressive than just about any other band ever (with the possible exceptions of Slipknot and the mighty Sepultura) Rapeman redefined American hardcore music and for better or worse laid the path for grunge. Taking funk rock, discordant post punk and blues based power trio-isms to new ultraviolent extremes, Two Nuns and A Pack Mule is certainly not for the faint hearted or easily offended. If you are easily confused by sarcasm, I'd also suggest that you give it a miss. But if you like hardcore punk at its finest (and with the addition of the group's live EP Budd on the CD version providing a little Yin to the album's Yang it is pretty much perfect) then buy now, without hesitation.Best song has to be Marmoset, a bizarre fusion of jazz tempos and hardcore riffery, topped off with Albini's blood curdling scream of "little b*****d... stop looking at me with your marmoset heart". Utterly sublime.There are only five stars available. I give it SIX."

Rape-person

mb | Ottawa, Ontario Canada | 07/21/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"...Now, moving on to the music, this is not Steve Albini at his best but it sure makes for an abrasive, ear-assaulting listen. Especially noteworthy is Rey Washam's drums, which are much more primal and angular than the monotonous machine-gunning of the drum machine in Albini's prior band, Big Black. The guitars played in Rapeman also sound more fluid and discordant. Albini himself acknowledges that the band was still in it's developmental stages for this album, and it shows in the songs -- there are many ideas but they sometimes end up going nowhere and aren't developed enough to reach their full sonic potential. The exceptional track which *does* achieve this is 'Monobrow', a song in which bittersweet noise collapses and implodes unexpectedly, and the guitar, bass, and drums create a restless tension amongst eachother. It's a track as satisfying as anything you've heard from Shellac or Big Black. There are a few other standout tracks, notably 'Steak and Black Onions', 'Up Beat', 'Marmoset', and 'Hated Chinee'. Overall, a great effort from a truly original, short-lived rock group. If this weren't being measured by the standards these musicians set for themselves (before and after this band), I would have given it 5 stars..."