Unsane

Occupational Hazard

(c)(p)1998 Relapse Records

Review by Neil St.Laurent

Thanks to Relapse for the CD

After spending the last two years touring the world with the likes of Neurosis, Entombed and Slayer, this New York noise trio is celebrating their 10th anniversary with the release of "Occupational Hazard".

Maintaining a moniker of noise rock may be undeserved with this latest release. The new album is heavily groove (somebody shoot me, I used that word) oriented. While having a basic noise aspect the general flow of the music has a definitive melody and the transitions are nothing like what you would expect from a noise band. One should hesitate to put them in the realm of Slayer however, one the surface the desire to consider them just another Thrash band is predominant, but without too much effort you can realize the music is more like that of Pantera (maybe I'm stretching). Heavily guitar driven along a strong bass track the music is very powerful and makes you wish there was a mosh pit in front of your stereo. No overly complex riffs keep this recording well away from a technical masterpiece, which is the most certain intent of the album.

With all the note on being more of a melodic album than noise it needs to be pointed out that the instruments and vocals are still very noisy unto themselves. The guitar has a certain noisy buzz to it and the occasional screech. The vocals are the very standard noise vocals, some guy rasping his way through seemingly uninspired lyrics, not for the purpose of a message, but strictly for additional noise in the mix. The bass however is fairly clean and accompanies well the rather interesting drums (definitely not metal drumming but oddly appealing).

I'll admit that whenever a band is described as noise my expectation level falls to somewhere just above a child banging on garbage cans... However, Unsane pleasantly surprised me with an inticing power metal approach with hints of noise layered within. While it is by no means sophisticated music it is great for simple primal enjoyment.

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