REVIEWS:
An industrial supergroup consisting of Ministry's rhythm section and just about anybody that they can get their hands on. They've released a handful of albums to moderate success (for a totally underground group, that is - they still sold next to no records, but people in the underground know who they are). All I've heard is their debut, Gub, and I really have no desire to hear the rest of their stuff. Continue reading to learn why.
--Philip Maddox
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(reviewed by Philip Maddox)
This album contains a plethora of top industrial superstars, including half of Ministry, Chris Connelly, En Esch (of KMFDM fame), Ogre (of Skinny Puppy), David Yow, and even world famous Trent Reznor. How could this record fail? Well, actually, it could. In fact, it is, without question, the worst album I ever made the mistake of buying. So what happened? First of all, there is almost NO instrumentation here. Most of the music consists of 2 sets of drums and vocals. Occasionally a simple synth noise or 2 will come in, but most of the time, its 2 drums and vocals. That's it. It kind of goes without saying that it's hard to play melodies when you're not playing any instruments, but this is even worse than it sounds.
Exactly ONE song on this album is listenable, and that's Connelly's vocal number "Little Sisters", which features an interesting vocal line, but never really goes anywhere. Another song on here has a listenable beginning, but turns horrible extremely quickly. The rest is unlistenable. You might wonder what Trent Reznor had to do with this album. Well, he sang "Suck", which was a hidden track on NIN's Broken album. But you see, while that version ruled, with uncontrollable guitars and passionate vocals, this version is, like the rest of the material, unlistenable. 2 drums. No interesting vocals yells. Nothing. The drums aren't even playing in tune, for Christ's sake! They're just randomly played! What the hell?
OK, I'll discuss what few other songs I remember here (I listened to it thrice, and refuse to listen again) - the opening "Tapeworm" actually has a groove, but it's a bad one, and the vocals are atrocious. Pass. The follow up, "Bushmaster", is worth an illegal download because it's just so horribly bad. I can't even describe it - it's just a guy yelling random words over minimal backing for, like, 5 minutes! Gods! The only reason I even bought this was because of the En Esch number, a "tune" with a long German name, and it might be the worst track here! It's him talking in German over a drum played tunelessly. For 6 MINUTES!!!!!! Eegah!!! I won't go on any further. You can get where I'm coming from here. Oh, there are a couple of instrumentals, too. They're as much fun as 2 drums playing slowly out of synch can be. Yipes.
The CD version comes with 4 "bonus" remixes. There are 2 identical sounding versions of "Tapeworm" and "Bushmaster" and a version of the En Esch tune with the drums taken out (so you just hear a squaking noise and him talking). Yipee. The other remix is of "Little Sisters". You know how I said that was the one listenable song here? This is the version I was thinking of. The "official" version is as bad as anything, but this version adds a decent guitar riff. It still gets old, but it's listenable. Oh well. I'll grant this a 1, and I'm being generous. If a couple of the songs didn't actually have some semblance of rhythm and/or the "Little Sisters" remix wasn't here, it'd get a 0. DO NOT BUY THIS RECORD UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!
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COMMENTS
Pigface's GUB is one of the rawest, rhythmically intense albums I've ever heard. It is an intense, percussive jam-session recorded for posterity. It is well worth buying, and only a pussy would say otherwise. This ranks in my top 5 of Albums To Fuck To. If you are looking for candy pop, or melody......look at the top 40, or get any run-of-the-mill over-produced techno or dance album. If you want something real.....and I mean REAL, then get GUB. And have fun introducing your friends to the album....chances are they've never experienced anything like it either, unless they survived the experimentation of 1960s-70s acidrock. Overall rating = 8
-ReverendG
I ts way the fuck out there. Think Umma Gumma meets a pissed off hammer. Good shit here.Can doing indo punk on cocaine. GOod shit.