Customer Reviews

Two Nuns & A Pack Mule

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It must have been around '87. I'd been too ignorant up untill that year to pick up Big Black (I was very much into AC/DC and Black Flag) But when I did, i became a born-again 'noisy' immediately. The Atomizer-album was awesome and realy made a mark in the history of music and guitar-playing. However, since we tend to realize things a bit late here in the Netherlands (where I live) Big Black broke up just about the time i was discovering the greatness of the band.
However, pretty soon I got my chance at a Rapeman-gig in Nijmegen (NLD). and boy, what a gig that was. The sheer exitement, the brutality of the sound, the In-Your-face-delivery of the band, all added up to an inspiring concert. Despite of the "I realy hate women"-kind alike statements by Steve. The power that oozed out of the PA-system gave me a great feeling. My girlfriend and I just got so excited...Great night!
Two Nuns....just brings that kind of exitement across and takes me back to what must have one of the greatest nights of my life. The same pounding drums, thrusting bass and wise-[guy]-attitude...There's simply not much production going on on this album...and therefore its a great token of how powerfull honest straight and true rock and roll can sound like...

Oh shoot, just listen and buy the darn thing...

It is hard to really explain this album. If you are familiar with Mr. Albini and all of his other endeavers, but somehow have missed Rapeman, you are in for a treat. If you have no idea what the above paragraph is talking about, then listen.

This is real rock and roll. Middle finger in the air, screaming for the sake of yelling, angry, beautiful, lame and brilliant. The guitar screams, the bass swells and booms, the drums drive. There is more sexual tension on display than a junior high school. I find it hard to understand that more people don't know these guys. Brutal thugs of the underground mid-west music scene. Get this!

Whether this album is fully realized or not, I leave for rock critics of the world to decide (it's not like Rapeman are trying to make Sgt. Pepper's here for poop's sake!)--all I know is this godlike trio floors me everytime I listen to this album. . . . The grooves are relentless, the anti-social/comedic lyrics are fun, the slashing post-punk guitars are pure joy, and one of my favorite drumming albums ever (Washam even makes Lord Bonham sound reserved). . . . Definitely not a cocktail party album or one to sip champagne to, try some cheap liquor and it will work wonders.

...Now, moving on to the music, this is not Steve Albini at his best but it sure makes for an abrasive, ear-assaulting listen. Especially noteworthy is Rey Washam's drums, which are much more primal and angular than the monotonous machine-gunning of the drum machine in Albini's prior band, Big Black. The guitars played in Rapeman also sound more fluid and discordant. Albini himself acknowledges that the band was still in it's developmental stages for this album, and it shows in the songs -- there are many ideas but they sometimes end up going nowhere and aren't developed enough to reach their full sonic potential. The exceptional track which *does* achieve this is 'Monobrow', a song in which bittersweet noise collapses and implodes unexpectedly, and the guitar, bass, and drums create a restless tension amongst eachother. It's a track as satisfying as anything you've heard from Shellac or Big Black. There are a few other standout tracks, notably 'Steak and Black Onions', 'Up Beat', 'Marmoset', and 'Hated Chinee'. Overall, a great effort from a truly original, short-lived rock group. If this weren't being measured by the standards these musicians set for themselves (before and after this band), I would have given it 5 stars...

I currently own nearly 1300 CD's and a lot of vinyl, but this is by far my most played disc I own (and I bought it 11 years ago). Rapeman is the definition of Power Trio. Even though Shellac is a fine band, and Big Black was... well they were special, Rapeman made those 2 bands look like A Flock Of Seagulls. Noisy, tight, in-your-face, and not the least bit subtle, "Two Nuns And A Pack Mule" is a must own for anyone who likes their music extreme. It's hard to comment on the songs individually, since there is nary a weak track to be found; however, the album does end with a formidable trio: Radar Love Lizard (which has a lizard singing it's own version of that Golden Earring classic "Radar Love"), Just Got Paid (yes...the ZZ Top song. Has to be heard to be believed!), and Trouser Minnow. The CD comes with the "Budd" EP, not quite as exciting, but a nice bonus. Buy this disc, listen to it 5 times in it's entirety (with headphones), and if you are not convinced this is one of the best rock albums ever made... you don't understand rock.

This is the most amazingly painful noise I have ever heard. Steve Albini's finest hour, I am thrilled to find it available on disc so inexpensively. I had this tape in my car for 5 years and played over and over until my stereo fell out. It's okay, I grew another one.

My personal favorite of the Albini bands. Dave Sims' bass is monstrous on songs like "Up Beat," "Trouser Minnow" crawls and creeps with barely restrained aggression, and there's a fantastic cover of ZZ Top's "Just Got Paid."

Kinda sleazy, kinda scary, kinda off-putting to folks who can't grasp the confrontational irony which informs Steve Albini's bile.

God I love this album so much. Let me just say here and now that I think their name is stupid, no matter how you try and justify it. Dumb name, great band.

From start to finish its a belter, this one. Opening with the brooding discordant blues riffery of Steak and Black Onions and closing with the brutal and sarcastic Trouser Minnow, the pace only ever lets up once during their Sonic Youth pastiche Kim Gordon's Panties, presumably to ensure your brain doesn't go into meltdown. Coming at the end of what would have been side one on the original vinyl release, it allows the listener brief respite before the pummeling devastation of the second side.

Featuring the talents of the infamous Steve Albini (guitar and screaming), David Wm Sims (bass) and Rey Washam (drummer probably on very bad terms with his neighbours) this band cooks. You can hear echoes of their sound in so many other bands; Slipknot, In Utero-era Nirvana,the Jesus Lizard (featuring Sims) and of course Shellac (Albini's current pet project), to name but a very obvious few. Tight, funky, bestial and far more aggressive than just about any other band ever (with the possible exceptions of Slipknot and the mighty Sepultura) Rapeman redefined American hardcore music and for better or worse laid the path for grunge.

Taking funk rock, discordant post punk and blues based power trio-isms to new ultraviolent extremes, Two Nuns and A Pack Mule is certainly not for the faint hearted or easily offended. If you are easily confused by sarcasm, I'd also suggest that you give it a miss. But if you like hardcore punk at its finest (and with the addition of the group's live EP Budd on the CD version providing a little Yin to the album's Yang it is pretty much perfect) then buy now, without hesitation.

Best song has to be Marmoset, a bizarre fusion of jazz tempos and hardcore riffery, topped off with Albini's blood curdling scream of "little b*****d... stop looking at me with your marmoset heart". Utterly sublime.

There are only five stars available. I give it SIX.

I got this recording on CD back in the early 90's before I really knew who any of these guys were, and I loved every song on it just for it's raw exuberance. I was into other Chicago outfits such as NAKED RAYGUN, MINISTRY and THE JESUS LIZARD, and I knew that this Albini guy just produced a PJ HARVEY album and was rumored to be hooking up with NIRVANA, so I decided to give them a try. Now 15 years later, the CD has taken on legendary/super group status in my collection of over 600 CD's.

RAPEMAN is Albini's musical project which bridges the gap between his older work as a guitar-grinding freak (BIG BLACK) and his early stuff as a producer and musician (SLINT, SHELLAC). Teaming up with Albini are bassist David W. Syms (SCRATCH ACID, JESUS LIZARD) and drummer Rey Washam (SCRATCH ACID, MINISTRY). All 3 of these guys made their mark on the Chicago underground music scene well into the 90's.

What's nice about RAPEMAN is it has all of the brutality and twingy, machine gun guitar of BIG BLACK, but it adds real drums, as "Roland" has been kicked to the curb. The best track on the CD, in my opinion, is "Trouser Minnow," a song about a shallow girl who just can't stop having sex with strange men in odd places. The lyrics are sung from the girl's point of view, which takes some getting used to. It was hard to picture Steve screaming out, "I gotta stop drinkin' around men--they take advantage of me!" Also, the ZZ Top cover ("Just Got Paid") is pretty good as well. If you're a fan of 80's Chicago punk, or a fan of SHELLAC, BIG BLACK, JESUS LIZARD or SCRATCH ACID, this CD is a must-have.

I mean the title only in jest, but, heck look at the lineup, Steve Albini (Big Black, Shellac, and producer extrodanaire), David Wm Sims (Scratch Acid & Jesus Lizard), Rey Washam (Scratch Acid, Ministry, Tad). Back when this first came out everyone thought that this was going to be a band that might stick together. But, Jesus Lizard came along and Albini became the engineer he is today, and Rey became drum for hire. All the songs on this album rank as Albini classics it is the perfect middle band betwen Big Black and Shellac. The song "Up Beat" is probably the most aggressive song ever made. "Trouser Minnow" is hilarous as Albini takes the role of a used and abused girl and some of the things that she says is not that far from the truth (I just like to know who that song is about). This album is a Touch and Go classic and that is why it is still in print after 11 years. This is an album that you can annoy your parents and neighbors with and can just say them "just wait till i start nautilist."