You can't put an exploding car or a television that's been smashed to bits inside a record sleeve, which sums up the problem had in capturing their appeal on vinyl -- so much of the band's initial reputation was based on their frantic and destructive live show, and divorced from the images, their first album, , simply had to get by on the band's music, which was a bit of a stretch. As musicians, were tight and not without imagination; their attack suggests guys who had been playing or who figured this stuff was going to be the next big thing, but rather than disguise their roots, guitarists and were more than willing to let their doomstruck influences shine through on the instrumental breaks to tunes like and parts of suggest arriving a few years early. However, as songwriters , , and (the band's manager and idea guy) didn't have all that much to say and not an especially compelling way of saying it. Stylistically, keeps going around in circles until it finally wears a groove into the floor, and the album's real weak spot is lead singer , who hadn't been singing very long and delivers most of these tunes in a guttural bleat that suggests with a mouthful of Novocain; she may well have known what to do on-stage, but in the studio her weaknesses were obvious and unavoidable. And while the album's great musical experiment -- the middle section of during which the musicians could neither see or hear one another -- may have been an interesting idea, the results suggest a roomful of college freshmen making their first stab at forming a band. A bit like ' first three albums, is the work of a band struggling to make the excitement of their stage show work in the studio and falling short of the mark, though there are a few moments where manage to get over on sheer sneering energy, one quality the microphones were able to capture. ~ Mark Deming