Naked Raygun - Power-Pop in the Hardcore Garage

Naked Raygun (Chicago, IL, 1981-1991) were among the first post-hardcore bands, and among the greatest and most original. Their importance in the history of rock is no less than that of their post-hardcore peers Fugazi and Jesus Lizard. Of all the possible routes to post-hardcore, the one forged by Naked Raygun is the most original even though it's also the simplest and most colorless – and therefore the hardest to follow. The Naked Raygun revolution happens within rock through rock itself; not – as is usually the case – by pulling rock through genres foreign to it. No jazz devices (Minutemen), no noise (Sonic Youth), no folk (Violent Femmes), nothing overtly pop (Husker Du), nothing programmatically industrial (Swans, Big Black), nothing decidedly metal (Corrosion Of Conformity), no reggae or arena-rock (the later Bad Brains), no hard-rock (Social Distortion), no blues (Cramps), no goth (Christian Death), no country-roots (Meat Puppets), no college-rock (Replacements), no indie (Dinosaur Jr). Naked Raygun simply (and remarkably) founded a new rock sound built from just three instruments, held together by a careful calibration between minimal sonic terms and instrumental deflagrations that nevertheless never spill over into excessive volume. On a scale of 0 to 10, the Naked Raygun volume setting sits almost permanently at 7. It's a sound wall devoid of peaks and valleys, of fortissimos as of pianissimos; an omnivorous being that shreds every layer of reality and, having digested it, expels it drained of its vital sap. That's why Naked Raygun's music isn't flashy; it's refined, and difficult.

People mostly understand the too-soft and the too-loud, not the third way – an equally extreme condition – represented by a fatal, mummified, golden mediocrity. It's a cancer, not a cry or an accident. No cataclysm, no pathology; rather, it's the physiological state itself that is perpetually ill. A state of persistence, however deathly and inhuman. Post-hardcore pushes to the extreme the already-"post" condition of hardcore with respect to punk: that is, a state devoid of revolt, of social implications or intent; a state of reflection, solitude and introspection within one's own room. Post-hardcore is a psychological session the self holds with itself, starting from the certainty that such therapy will be ineffective.

Naked Raygun's sound is post-hardcore because it's hardcore stripped of power and watered down (even the average song length shifts from 1-2 minutes to 2-3). An instrumental ensemble that's consistently high-level, both technically and expressively, is paired with a voice that's lived-in and young, moving and furious, dark and sky-blue all at once.

Chicago, already home to Effigies and Strike Under, the bands (formed in 1980) of the Kezdy brothers, saw its scene between hardcore and post-hardcore grow from the early Eighties onward: on one side Vic Bondi's Articles Of Faith, on another Steve Albini's Big Black, and on a third, Bloodsport. Naked Raygun were a cornerstone of that scene, and from Chicago they became a cornerstone for the whole of America – which, as far as this style of popular music goes, means for the whole world. Strictly speaking, Naked Raygun inherited the strain of depression and the abundant (industrial-style) sonic solutions from Steve Albini (via Pezzati); while the essentially garage rhythm and the minimalism of the arrangements came instead from British punk-rock (Stiff Little Fingers, Buzzcocks, Gang Of Four, Wire). As you can see, strictly speaking, both hardcore (Germs) and punk (Sex Pistols) are actually missing from the equation.

Solitude and existential dismay – derived half from the mass-leveling of society and half from the sheer meaninglessness of life – are the classic themes on which Naked Raygun's expressionistic shading takes hold. An immigrant's-eye view of the world, conceived in a naive way out of sheer excess of realism, is instead their most personal touch (owed to the originality of both their instrumental tones and their vocal ones).

If Jeff Pezzati (a friend and collaborator of Albini's) is the leader of Naked Raygun, this should be understood in the sense that he gives coherence to and finalizes the indispensable contributions offered, time after time, by the band's members in terms of songwriting. A separate note is owed to the sheer excellence of Naked Raygun's live performances: something torrential, frenzied, moving and flawless.

Basement Screams (1983): EP, 15 minutes, 8 tracks.

Jeff Pezzati: Vocals

Santiago Durango: Guitar

Jim Colao: Drums

Camilo Gonzalez: Bass

The record is completely dominated by the personality of the twenty-year-old guitarist Santiago Durango – almost all the songs are written by him: at most Colao and Gonzalez contribute something, Pezzati nothing. Durango, after a year – 1984 – spent straddling Big Black (Steve Albini) and Naked Raygun (Jeff Pezzati played bass on two Big Black EPs in 1984), chose the former over the latter (in 1990 Santiago Durango is in Arsenal; see Factory Smog Is A Sign of Progress).

Basement Screams offers no outright masterpieces – its strongest moments are the opening and closing tracks – but formally it already says everything Naked Raygun would go on to do over the course of their career: minimalist garage-rock, post-hardcore stretched between skeletal blues, rock'n'roll and industrial. It remains a historically crucial work, a point of reference for the entire post-hardcore movement.

“I Lie” (Durango) [3:12] is the prototype of the epic choral chant that would become the martial through-line of Naked Raygun's sound. “Bombshelter” (Durango) [:50] is another choral chant, but of a different nature: no longer martial but industrial, Albini-style. “Emperor Tojo” (Gonzalez) [1:57] is more reflective and introspective, Pezzati's voice still caught between inner cancer and adolescent metaphysical airs. Built on an almost dub-like rhythm section and a stuttering, stripped-down guitar.

“Swingo” (Durango) [2:33] carries on the tragic idiocy of Fear. “Mofo” (Colao/Durango) [2:03] still speculates on an exorcistic formula (Birthday Party, Nick Cave), endlessly repeated in on itself and conceived as a transfiguration of metropolitan life (particularly suffocating in the air of Chicago, home to 8 million people). “Potential Rapist” (Colao) [2:35] is the most heartfelt track, the closest to English new-wave existentialism: a mercilessly measured progression serves as a backdrop for a recitation of despair and self-pity.

Throb Throb (1985), LP, 14 tracks, 33 minutes.

Jeff Pezzati: Vocals

Jim Colao: Drums

John Haggerty: Guitar (Electric), Saxophone

Camilo Gonzalez: Bass, Guitar (Bass)

Gomez Addams: Producer

The songs are split among all the band members, though Pezzati and Gonzalez take the lion's share, each contributing three apiece.

The standout tracks are: “Rat Patrol” (Haggerty) [2:11], an impassioned choral chant in the vein of “I Lie”, the most emblematic song of the album's grotesque anti-militarism; “Metastasis” (Gonzales) [2:24], a synthesis of the Buzzcocks' noisy melodicism, David Thomas's metaphysical bent and the gaunt alienation of English dark post-punk; “I Don't Know” (Pezzati/Haggerty) [3:29], a high-tension whirlwind of volume and rhythm that loses nothing in either its choral sweep or its intimacy: both scarred by life and within life.

“Surf Combat” (Gonzales) [1:16] is a precious miniature of excess and meditation, dissonant guitars and a dub rhythm section. “Gear” (Pezzati) [2:49] is a desperate lament, all stuttering and steeped in rhythmic constipation. “Leaches” (Pezzati) [3:14] is a textbook Albini-suite: sprawling bass, fragile, acidic guitar, a nauseating vocal: as much pathos as indifference. “Roller Queen” (Pezzati/Haggerty) [3:06] is yet another – and the finest – example of the band's impeccable formal command: all the more precious the more it's built on bare essentials. A level of craft that lets a song like this call itself timeless while still bearing the mark of its own time, as always happens with true art.

“Libido” (Colao) [3:25] is a flawless garage-jazz number, built with granite-like solidity in its tension between fullness and emptiness, noise and silence. “No Sex” (Pezzati) [1:50] is, like all of Pezzati's songs, in thrall – albeit a thoroughly fertile submission – to Albini's alienated, industrial introversion. The chorus, meanwhile, recalls Black Flag's formulas. “Only in America” (Durango/Colao) [2:04] is a socially charged fanfare set to a textbook sax rhythm – and textbook rock rhetoric too. “Stupid” (Durango) [1:11] is a Black Flag-style bloodbath, and, as with Black Flag, closer to pessimistic rock'n'roll than Californian hardcore. “Managua” (Gonzales) [3:44] rests on a garage-punk melodicism that is as dark as it is luminous.

All Rise (1986) LP, 13 tracks, 30 minutes.

Pierre Kezdy: Bass (ex Strike Under and brother of John Kezdy, the leader of the Effigies; later in Pegboy)

Jeff Pezzati: Vocals

Eric Spicer: Drums

John Haggerty: Guitar (Electric)

Iain Burgess: Producer (already a collaborator with Big Black and The Effigies, he would go on to work with great bands such as: Trouble, Mega City Four, Ministry, Pegboy, Les Thugs, Jawbox, The Cows, Poster Children)

This is Pezzati's album. Almost his own personal songbook of despair. Eight of the 13 tracks are written entirely by him. And unfortunately those are the ones that work least; that, as they say in the trade, sound the weakest. Aware of this, Pezzati would, from then on, increasingly step back as a songwriter. Here he attempts to humanize Albini - that is, to recreate his deathly, bleak atmospheres through minimal, semi-acoustic means (in other words, without samples or rhythm machines). If the effect can come close to Big Black, Pezzati's bitterness (sincere and convincing to an almost unbelievable degree) lacks Albini's polish, his flair. "Home Of The Brave" [- 2:05], "Dog At Large" [- 2:16], "Knock Me Down" [- 2:18], "Mr. Gridlock" [- 3:08], "The Strip" [- 1:46], "The Envelope" [- 2:26] are manifestos of pure, raw confession (and without the grandiloquence of a certain Rollins). For this reason they'd be worth more than any average song (and not just the run-of-the-mill ones). The problem is that the sterility, the unpleasantness, lies not only in the content but also in the form, which should instead be elevated in order to properly engage and move the listener. That said, not for a moment are technique, composition, execution and the truthfulness of the content neglected. We're still worlds away from radio music. And in fact, the very flaws that plague these tracks also make them the most depressed and suffocating of Naked Raygun's entire career (one could even mention Christian Death). It goes without saying that, besides having to reassess the high points of Naked Raygun, this album too deserves to be reassessed - or rather, for once, properly assessed. We're still within that small slice of truly quality music production. Then again, at least the unusual, carefree speed of "Those Who Move" [- 2:25] on one hand, and the slow, violent fragmentation (that even The Cure would envy) of "Peacemaker" [- 3:15] on the other, shine with their own light.

Finally there are the contributions from the rest of the band. "I Remember" (Haggerty) [- 2:22] is already on the rhythmic track that would become Pegboy's trademark: it makes you jump and scream (and well up with nostalgia); a great track, as is typical of Haggerty. "Backlash Jack" (Naked Raygun) [- 2:41] is appealing instead for its indie power-pop stance (it would teach R.E.M. a great deal, though they'd never dare go so far). "Slim" (Naked Raygun) [-2:58] ventures into a surprising and unusual (for this band) parody of country-rock: ten years before Faith No More. "Rock Of Sweden" (Kezdy) [-1:25] - the breathtaking closer that mirrors the more carefree "New Dreams" (Durango) [- 1:19] - even boasts metal cadences (and speed) that at times lighten certain counterpoints and at other times (and above all) sharpen and intensify the raging vocals.

An underrated (or unknown) album by the already underrated (or unknown) Naked Raygun, it ought to be owned by anyone with an interest in rock.

Jettison (1988), Lp, 36 minutes, 13 tracks.

Pierre Kezdy: Bass

Jeff Pezzati: Vocals

Eric Spicer: Drums

John Haggerty: Guitar, Guitar (Electric), Saxophone

Larry Strum: Producer (these days he works as a sound engineer for Destiny's Child and Anastacia)

Iain Burgess: Producer, Recording

Naked Raygun's masterpiece stands out as being more the work of Haggerty and Kezdy (the latter credited on as many as 7 tracks!) than of Pezzati. The band is by now averaging around 28 years of age: that maturity shows, but only in a positive way, enriching past glories and feelings rather than diminishing them.

There are numerous masterpieces here - at least five, for connoisseurs, to be savored and savored again - all riding a very "garage" strain of power-pop, packed with dissonance, minimalism, choral vocals and heartbroken refrains. "Soldiers Requiem" (Haggerty/Kezdy) [4:14] is the peak of the chant-like anthems that began with "I Lie" and, passing through "Rat Patrol" and "Home Of The Brave", reach their fullest realization here. "Live Wire" (Haggerty/Kezdy) [3:39] boasts a hard-rock structure combined with indie-dark pathos, culminating in a dreamlike, desolate refrain: sublime in its Sonic Youth-like noise shimmers, in the composed rhythm section, and in a structure that is at once rock-solid, intimate and devilish. "Blight" (Kezdy) [2:05] could be the greatest Gang Of Four song never written: new-wave heartache, irresistible empathy, dark sound. "Ghetto Mechanic" (Haggerty) [2:56] is an excellent industrial-blues number worthy of Scratch Acid or Birthday Party. "Suspects Device" (Fingers/Ogivile) [2:45] isn't just a magnificent live cover of the classic 1979 song by Irish punk-rockers Stiff Little Fingers: it's one of the single most thrilling live performances in the whole history of rock; it's a showcase of Naked Raygun's exceptional musicianship; but above all it's the most representative track of the quiet revolution carried out by Naked Raygun - a revolution that is first and foremost formal, concerning the performance of songs that, after certain arrangements and technical tweaks, truly become new, more pulsing, alive and meaningful songs.

The other eight tracks. "When The Walls Come Down" (Pezzati) [2:21] is a furious mid-tempo number that, never rising too high nor sinking too low, pursues the path of reinventing the rock song through a kind of futuristic primitivism. "Walk In Cold" (Spicer) [2:23] is a flawless, downcast power-pop track that could sit comfortably on Husker Du's "Warehouse" (1987). "Jettison" (Pezzati) [:59] is top-tier industrial-core that could fit on one of Big Black's albums - an experience Pezzati never forgot. "The Mule" (Haggerty/Kezdy) [3:05] is a very brisk power-pop number, where Pezzati's mature, full-bodied voice, his ever-controlled melodic sense, and a refrain of indie epic proportions - pushed almost to excess - are all given maximum room to shine. "Coldbringer" (Haggerty/Pezzati) [2:33] is a stately pop-metal piece of apocalyptic perversion, tempered by some clever, quasi-cabaret touches. And all of this achieved with the economy of just three instruments - here lies the undeniable greatness of the ensemble, which effectively invented its own brand of rock without settling into jazz, blues, electronics, classical, or folk.

"Free Nation" (Kezdy) [3:20] is a self-referential ritual of formulaic riffs, shifting between rhythmic accelerations and release in the refrain. "Hammer Head" (Kezdy) [2:31] is a sophisticated whirl of choral vocals and tempo changes worthy of the phenomenal Big Boys. "Vanilla Blue" (Kezdy) [3:10] is the ideal concert opener: a nonsensical guitar phrase kicks things off, a drum roll answers, the atmospheric bass creeps in; then comes the choral charge toward four or five riffs, as textbook as they are disguised, building to the apotheosis of a voice that narrates, trills, laments - always giving everything it has.

Understand? (1989) LP, 12 tracks, 32 minutes.

Pierre Kezdy: Bass

Jeff Pezzati: Vocals

Eric Spicer: Drums

John Haggerty: Guitar

Larry Strum: Producer

Without quite tipping over into metal, Understand? is the heaviest and most immediate Naked Raygun album (from here to Pegboy the step would be short, if significant). Neither a masterpiece like Jettison nor as experimental as All Rise or Throb Throb, it's nonetheless more than enjoyable as a modern take - stripped of any political ambition - on Stiff Little Fingers' decade-old garage-punk. Strangely enough, there's also room for the occasional flash of Sex Pistols (if not of Johnny Rotten's work in PIL). Naked Raygun haven't lost the slightest bit of edge, sincerity or gloom. Proof of that comes at least from "Entrapment" (Pezzati) [- 2:45] - ironically already a Pegboy song, though written by a Pezzati who here delivers his finest work as a songwriter - "Bughouse" (Kedzey) [- 3:11] - which plays up the dirges and rhythm of Jettison - and "The Sniper Song" (Spicer) [- 1:35] - restrained as it is, a real gut punch.

Right after Understand?, John Haggerty formed Pegboy with his brother Joe (formerly the drummer of Bloodsport), the pinnacle of Chicago's whole post-hardcore scene, and with the EP Three Chord Monte (1990) and the album Strong Reaction (1991) they became among the greatest (and most overlooked) protagonists of 90s rock and garage-rock as a whole.

Raygun... Naked Raygun (LP, 1990) is Pezzati's act of loyalty to the Naked Raygun project, which, however, as Haggerty had rightly foreseen by vividly reinterpreting its ideas in Pegboy, no longer had any life left in it.

Throb Throb, All Rise, Jettison, Understand? (four precious albums in five years), all part of a single journey yet each taking a different angle, deserve to be kept in mind (and scrutinized, and dissected) by every self-respecting rock devotee.

Jeff Pezzati, after 10 years of inactivity, in 2000 - amid the usual indifference - released Torch Song with The Bomb.

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