Solid Little Rock Jams

Unwound - The Future of What

Remember when you heard Fugazi's In On The Killtaker and you were like, "Oh, shit, this is some abrasive post-hardcore noise rockin' Steve Albini shit, lol." Meet Unwound, you pussy!

Unwound was the 90s noise-rock band that you simply did not fuck with. Scarier than Drive Like Jehu (the singer's voice wasn't as high-pitched and phlegmy.) Artier/less balls-out-rawk than the Jesus Lizard. Not as groovyass-classic-rock as Fugazi. Sure, they were influenced by Sonic Youth, but Unwound actually managed to write good songs. Like Shellac, they were a power trio whose members all brought something distinct to the table. Sara Lund played drums more creatively than you ever will, Vern Rumsey's basslines were totally crushing, and Justin Trosper... he sounded bored like SM and Thurston Moore, but he didn't sound like a little bitch when he screamed. Dude fucking roared his head off. And the guitar playing... just brilliant. You can't tell what the fuck he's playing half the time! These aren't normal chords! One could say the same about Sonic Youth, but shit, I just don't give a fuck!

From all this, they forged one hell of a fucking inimitable sound. Five years and three albums into their career at this point, they released our friend The Future of What, and this album... this album. This album is that album. It's not as rough as their first two. It's tighter, but it's more brutal. The songs are shorter and more concise. And the whole thing sounds crystal clear. After this album, they started experimenting with more studio effects, which would eventually lead them to crafting one of the greatest albums of all-time. Until then, we have this... pure, raw, skull-crushing, noisy fucking. That's right, fucking. Sorry if you like music or something. There's none of that here.

Although they progressed with every album, The Future of What is the high-point of Unwound's abrasive shit-kicking years. Everything is perfect here. All the songs just rule ass. The last several minutes of the album's epic closer "Swan" where they're playing this one droning chord and then the song ends and there's just this wall of guitar noise for a few minutes... FUCK. So good. Stop the CD there, though, because the next four tracks are just this one keyboard loop that they added to the CD version as "extra boredom" because Unwound are scummy, dollar-grabbing pieces of shit and are members of the worst band in the world, aka the Beatles (they did that song about "the nookie" right?)

Rating: 9.6/10 sounds about right.