Big Black Album Recommendations: "Bulldozer"

Album Recommendations: Bulldozer

The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Big Black

[#] Bulldozer (1983)

Thrillingly repellant.

Reviewed February 7, 2025

The trebly, ripping, clanging guitar intro to "Cables" says everything about Bulldozer in just thirty seconds. Disinterested in common taste but especially interested in violence, it's like Steve Albini just discovered how to make his guitar sound like that shortly before they pressed record. Emboldened after the effective home demo Lungs attracted a proper band (Steve is backed by most of Naked Raygun and, curiously, Urge Overkill's drummer Pat Byrne doubling Roland the drum machine), Bulldozer isn't just notable for establishing Big Black's entire musical MO, but for how damn well they were carrying it out out of the gate.

Over a spiky, thrashing backdrop of sheet metal guitars and unrelenting percussion, Steve delights in using his snotty, nerdy shrieks to embody and satirize the shitbirds and shitheels that center his songs. Two thrillseekers trespass in a slaughterhouse on "Cables". "Pigeon Kill" pitches a tent at an entire town's poisoned corn bird genocide. If Seth the attack dog isn't racist enough for you, try the sampled America First Committee message at the start of the track. Even the closing Lungs outtake "Jump the Climb" is a step up in aggression, despite it sharing Lungs' ineffectual lyrical vagueness. Compellingly confrontational right out of the gate, with the occasional cowpunk groove here and there for good measure, Bulldozer set a high bar for the young punk band to clear—and only occasionally did they do so.