Review Summary: Nasty but memorable, Unsane is a listen not to be forgotten
Right away, from looking at the front cover, the listener is blown away by the incredibly gruesome image of a decapitated man laying on subway train tracks. While the photo is (thank goodness!) faked, the intensity of the music is not. As soon as the disc starts to spin in your CD player, you are bombarded with ear shattering vocals and violent riffs that drill holes in your eardrums.
If I had to describe
Unsane’s musical style any further, I would have to say that they sound like an odd mixture of noise rock, alternative metal, and blues. The production is very rough, giving the band’s overall sound a very nasty tone. Lyrics such as
“Shut up!/*** you!/I’m just a piece of *** like you” doesn't help lighten up the mood either.
Frontman Chris Spencer’s vocal performance is somewhat odd; instead of singing, Spencer simply yelps in a shrill tone. His performance gives off the impression that he’s being beaten on the ground while recording, only adding to the already bleak atmosphere of the record. There’s only two tracks on the entire record where he does not “sing”, “AZA-2000” and “Action Man”. With these two tracks, drummer Charlie Ondras does the vocal duties, and he actually pulls off a pretty nice performance.
On “AZA-2000”, he basically imitates Spencer’s style, but does so in an appropriate fashion that fits well with the sludgy-yet-fast instrumentation. On “Action Man”, he approaches the vocals differently, this time in a rather silly manner. However, this actually helps out the song very much, making it a very fun and entertaining listen. After “Action Man”, we reach the closer track “White Hand”, which is definitely a highlight of the album.
For one, Pete Shore’s bass is very catchy and memorable. Through out the record, Shore simply followed the guitars and did not do much else, here, however, his bass gives extra backbone to the Spencer’s wandering guitar lines. “White Hand” as a whole gives off a tone of fear and uncertainty rather than anger, which makes for a memorable closer and a stand out track. While the album does have a few mediocre moments here and there,
Unsane is a listen that will leave the listener an urge to grab his or her guitar and play violent, simplistic riffs until the night gets old.
