Big Black- "Bulldozer" EP

Big Black
"Bulldozer" EP
Ruthless Records
1983

Following the uncharacteristic debut under the Big Black moniker, Albini returned with a full band of sorts! There was the addition of 2 fellow-Chicagoan punks from Naked Raygun, Jeff Pezzati and Santiago Durango. Roland still kept the beat, the unflappable drum machine rounding out the band.

“Bulldozer” is unlike “Lungs” because “Lungs” doesn’t kick you in the teeth, then proceed to drag you through the mud on the way to the slaughterhouse. “Bulldozer” is an unforgiving jackhammer full of some full-blown noise blasts. In fact, Steve Albini’s guitar “solos” consist of him mainly running his signature metal guitar pics frantically over the strings while Pezzati rattles the bass and Durango keeps it together with thin guitar leads. It’s stunning how the band sounds like a completely solidified and planned mess!

“Cables” kicks off the EP with some traditional, frantic punk stops and starts, and explodes after some ominous guitar scraps and rattles introduce the song. It’s just the kind of song about cattle getting electro-shock to the skull that makes you unable to operate heavy machinery around small children. “Texas” sounds like fucked-up rodeo played at shotty-craftsmanship-carnival speeds, but with a punk chant. “Pigeon Kill” is a steady blast that is accentuated with the eerie guitar drones, like something out of an old sci-fi movie.

Lyrically, Steve Albini is like a less comically smug, and more cryptic Michael Moore. His songs present some a variety of unattractive truths about America, and the American psyche throughout our nation’s history, from small town farming to elitist values. Yet, it’s delivered in a “fuck you” manner with obscure context clues, showing we’re all sucked up in this bullshit. Songs like “Pigeon Kill” pave the way for the American darkness that Albini likes to unearth (as if “Cables” hadn’t done the job already). “Seth,” a song about an attack dog that goes after black people is just another example of the ugly truths and rants that Albini doesn’t just present, but angrily and hopelessly heaves at us.

Produced by the late punk-vet engineer, Ian Burgess, the intense shrill and pounce of “Bulldozer” cuts much deeper than “Lungs.” However, despite names like "Big Black" and "Bulldozer," the album never really gets "heavy." In fact, Big Black never really got heavy. They always seemed more content being noisy pissants with guitars, rather than sonically pummeling. This EP, really kickstarts the robotically sinister, and sickly funny cacophony of Big Black.

8/10