Longtime denizens of the Minneapolis rock scene, the Cows
are one of America's great degenerate punk rock bands. Starting off as
near-total incompetents, they have become more technically polished
musicians during the '90s, but their white-hot noise rock has not been
tamed one bit. In many ways, the Cows
remain as gloriously messy, primitive, and exciting as they were the
day they started. Formed in the mid-'80s by idiosyncratic lead singer
Shannon Selberg, the Cows
appropriated the hardcore guitar blur that characterized fellow-Twin
Citians Hüsker Dü, but stripped away any and all concessions to
melodies, hooks, riffs -- essentially anything that remotely resembled
pop. What they offered was a blazing wall of distortion that was punk
rock at its crudest; a feral racket that sounded as if the guitars were
being played with metal files. Above the din was Selberg,
free-associating surreal vignettes about, well, God knows what, but his
squealing, shrieking, and general lunacy provided the bizarre, often
engaging, focus. He plays trumpet, too -- well, not so much plays as
blasts a note or two when he's tired of ranting. After the release of
their first album in 1987, the Cows were roundly derided as a talentless, tasteless joke (a charge that would be leveled a few years later against Babes in Toyland).
However, they've stayed true to their anti-commercial stance and punk
roots, releasing a handful of weird, loud, gleefully unhinged records
that seem to get better (i.e., more focused and less obtuse) and retain
the band's devotion to mania.
Tracklist
| A1 | Death In The Tall Weeds | 2:41 | |
| A2 | Unentitled | 0:56 | |
| A3 | Say Uncle | 5:42 | |
| B1 | Felon Of Troy | 4:47 | |
| B2 | Dear Dad | 2:28 |
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