Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician LP

$16.98

Sold Out

Label: Latino Bugger Veil

Our Review:

Few bands have managed as perfect an opening career salvo as Texas drug addled psychedelic noise rock weirdos the Butthole Surfers. Sure lots of bands have pulled off a perfect debut. And of those, a handful somehow avoided the sophomore slump, and even then, a few managed to make a third record as good as the first two, but by record four, we're talking a very select few. One of those rare bands would indeed be the Butthole Surfers. Their first four records are pretty much untouchable, their 1984 debut, Psychic… Powerless… Another Man's Sac, 1986's Rembrandt Pussyhorse, Locust Abortion Technician from 1987, and finally 1988's Hairway To Steven. Each a very different, very dementedly fucked up beast, but each a stunning milestone in knuckle dragging outsider psychedelic drug rock.

Locust Abortion Technician might be the most famous/infamous Surfers record there is and might great place to start for newcomers. It's definitely the weirdest, with the least proper 'songs' and the most warped sonic experiments, starting with the oft quoted opening intro, culminating in Gibby howling "SATAN SATAN SATAN" before the band kick into their own damaged version of Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf", rechristened as "Sweat Loaf." Then we should skip ahead to "Human Cannonball", which is the Surfers at their poppiest, one of the catchiest jams in their arsenal. Were this by any other band, it would have been a massive hit. Then there's the truly terrifying "U.S.S.A", with some of the most intense and freaked out vocals ever, all over a weird bed of pulsing buzz, and balloon animal squeak. "Kuntz" is pretty much straight up sample of some Southeast Asian folk song, with just the chorus manipulated to accentuate the unfortunate refrain. On "22 Going On 23," the band takes a phone call to some sort of call in radio show, and sets it to some classic Buttholes dirgery, and transforms this poor woman's story into the 'lyrics,' for one of the most haunting and harrowing songs in their catalog. And somehow between all these classics, there's still even more killer stuff...

You might also like: