Locust Abortion Technician cover

Locust Abortion Technician

Released

The Butthole Surfers’ third album is split nearly 50-50 between goofy tape/noise experiments (“Kuntz,” “Weber,” “Hay”) and surprisingly heavy rock songs (“Sweat Loaf,” built on the riff from Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf,” the imitation thrash metal of “The O-Men,” and most amazingly, “Human Cannonball,” a cranked-up arena anthem with clearly audible — if still nonsensical — vocals and a massive, pounding beat). Two versions of the hellish stoner blues “Graveyard” bracket the album, and it ends with the nightmarish “22 Going On 23,” a psychedelic sludge jam introduced by a tape of a woman revealing herself (falsely) to a call-in radio show as the victim of sexual abuse.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Dreamin’ Wild cover

Dreamin’ Wild

Donnie & Joe Emerson
Sun on Sand cover

Sun on Sand

Joshua Redman, Brooklyn Rider, Patrick Zimmerli
Ask the Ages cover

Ask the Ages

Sonny Sharrock
QUIET EARTH cover

QUIET EARTH

Muriel Grossmann
Halber Mensch cover

Halber Mensch

Einstürzende Neubauten