PAINKILLER

GUTS OF A VIRGIN

  1/  Scud Attack                                (PainKiller)                  3.07
  2/  Deadly Obstacle Collage                    (PainKiller)                  0.21
  3/  Damage To The Mask                         (PainKiller)                  2.43
  4/  Guts of A Virgin                           (PainKiller)                  1.19
  5/  Handjob                                    (PainKiller)                  0.10
  6/  Portent                                    (PainKiller)                  4.00
  7/  Hostage                                    (PainKiller)                  2.24
  8/  Lathe of God                               (PainKiller)                  0.56
  9/  Dr. Phibes                                 (PainKiller)                  3.00
  10/ Purgatory of Fiery Vulvas                  (PainKiller)                  0.26
  11/ Warhead                                    (PainKiller)                  1.12
  12/ Devil's Eye                                (PainKiller)                  4.37

          Recorded and mixed April 1991 at Greenpoint, Brooklyn
          Recorded and mixed by Oz Fritz
          Assistant engineer: Wes Naprstek
          Produced by PainKiller
          Mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk

John Zorn: alto, vocals; Bill Laswell: bass; Mick Harris: drums, vocals.

          1991 - Earache (UK), Mosh 45 (12")
          1991 - Earache (UK), Mosh 45 CD (CD)
          1991 - Toy’s Factory Records (Japan), TFCK-88561 (CD)
          1998 - Earache (UK), MOSH 198 CD (CD)

Note: The Toy's Factory version contains artwork banned on the UK version.
Note: Earache re-released Guts of a Virgin and Buried Secrets in 1998 on one CD.

REVIEWS :

Ha! Great opening scream. Sets the pace for an album of fire and schizophrenic mood swings. After this first opening salvo the vocals seemed to take a back seat to the manic music. Listening to this debut album way after PAINKILLER have finished inflicting their madness upon the world, it sounds comparatively formed and leans towards songs, although when the final agonized scream had echoed into eternity, and the unholy triumvirate had gone their separate ways, the scorched air still stank of this original nuclear assault. Apart from NAKED CITY, I don't believe ZORN carried a project as long as he did this one, and here you can see why he kept coming back for more. Playing adeptly at this heady pace must have been like trying to thread a needle on the World's Fastest, Highest and Most Terrifying Big Dipper. And, against some law of human limitations, they manage it. There's overall probably a lot more structure on this first outing than on "Buried Secrets", and the saxophone forms notes and grasps at passing notions of tune, whereas that second album used sax with the same results of a Rap musician using a turntable - scratching, streaking, clawing down the very sky.

This album will bludgeon your senses, atrophy your auditory tract with it's jet-fuelled rage.

But don't buy this! Invest instead in the "Complete Studio Recordings 1991-1994" which includes this album, the second and the final double album plus "Marianne" and a "Live In Osaka" album. Four CDs which will melt the rest of your album collection into the fat blob it will seem after the PAINKILLER experience.

Debut from the collaborative efforts of JOHN ZORN, MICK HARRIS & BILL LASWELL. Somehow more formed than later material, but still boiling with the wildness of their creative genius. ReviewerANTONY BURNHAM for METAMORPHIC JOURNEYMAN

Antony Burnham (courtesy of Metamorphic Journeyman website)

..................................................

ZORN's back with more freeform hardcore atrocity which begins where his last project NAKED CITY (also on EARACHE) left off. This time round, ZORN's really stuck his neck out and decided to handle the vocal chores - which comes as a big relief to those of us who're no big fans of YAMATSUKA EYE or any of his mates, for that matter! (Hey, Japanese hardcore sucks - and you know it!). So this time round ZORN rocks harder than ever, with a solid backbone which allows the whole combo to tower on its hind legs at appropriate moments - check out ZORN's choking fit on "Deadly Obstacle Collage" for instance. ZORN seems to be taking "LA Blues" as his blueprint and from here, branching out all over the place, in all sorts of directions with some real spaz guitar and elastic bass-lines. My only real reservation about this project is that sometimes the academic way in which ZORN approaches his field starts to piss me off. Sometimes his Art House background becomes stomach churningly obvious, betraying him and holding him back from really cutting loose.\par But hey, I'm no square and sometimes there's nothing I like better than to fuck all the art vs. trash aesthetic and to shake my little booties to the good time get down hardcore vibes-man! How about you?

Review from SPIRAL SCRATCH 1/23/92