Oliver: Unsane - My Right (8 December 1991)

In December 1991, no band held John Peel in greater thrall than the New York noise rock trio, Unsane.

They weren't strangers to his playlists, he had been playing them since 1989 at least.  but the release of their eponymous debut album at the end of November 91, saw them reach Fall levels of ubiquity through the course of December and deservedly so.

How to describe Unsane to anyone who has never heard of them?  I would say that they are the aural equivalent of a gaping, bloody wound, and that isn't so far-fetched given the luridness of their cover art.  If that sounds unattractive, it's important to ask you to imagine someone injecting shots of pure adreanalin into that wound - bursts of excitement that keeps the listener moving forward through the onslaught.  They're harder than Big Chief but slightly less "Rawwwwwwwgh" than Raw Noise and better than either of them.

As with Milk there's drama and ideas galore here and it's that aforementioned "adreanalin" that makes the difference.  A willingness to take diversions and remember that there is an audience out there to engage.  Any noisecore band that takes the time to lift us out of the storm and put us into the eye of it will always find a place on my mixtape.

My Right wasn't featured on the Unsane album that Peel gave such heavy rotation to, instead it was included as part of a triple A-side single with the tracks Jungle Music and Blood Boy.


Video courtesy of picpoul77.