Crain
Speed
Crain formed in early 1989 from the ashes of Cerebellum, an art-punk ensemble that featured a then-teenaged Drew Daniel (Matmos, Soft Pink Truth) on vocals. Picking up where the nervy Cerebellum had left off, Crain made frantic, impassioned music that resonated for audiences who were otherwised bemused by contemporary punk rock. Twelve years after its original LP-only release, we have reissued Speed on CD for the first time, with four bonus tracks of rare and unreleased material. Recorded by Steve Albini in 1991 on an 8-track in his basement – and remastered from the original master tapes by John Golden in 2004 – Speed fits somewhere between the positive punk anthems of Fugazi and the gritty wall-of-noise melodicism of Nirvana. Throw in the occasional Minutemen-inspired spoken-word vocals, and you have a record that was every bit as prescient as Slint's Spiderland (albeit far harder to find). Crain's influence is wide-reaching and evident on countless records by everyone from James Murphy's now-defunct pre-DFA projects (Pony, Speedking) to widely popular and hugely influential acts like Shellac and Helmet. To call this Speed reissue "long-overdue" is quite an understatement.
TRACK LISTING1. Car Crash Decisions
2. Monkey Wrench
3. Proposed Production
4. Kneel
5. The Dead Town
6. King Octane
7. Skinminer Pastel
8. News From Warsaw
9. Ten Miles of Fiction
10. Ribcage
11. Fuckerman
12. Stabilizer
13. Blistering
14. Breathing Machine