Whorn

With new drummer Freddy Votel installed behind the kit, the Cows decided to record live in the studio for this release -- completely live -- and the result is a loose and energetic album, rich with the obvious microphone bleeds endemic to such a recording style. The bass mic picks up drum sound, the snare mic picks up some guitar reverb, the room mics pick up everything, and so on. This is a fairly traditional, old fashioned recording method -- setting up the microphones and rolling tape. This is not to say that Whorn isn't without problems; after all, the band peaked during Cunning Stunts and Sexy Pee Story, then opted to explore the more avant territory visited here and on the band's final, massively tweaked Beefheart-meets-Flipper-meets-Chrome opus, Sorry in Pig Minor. But overall, Whorn, with its inventive title, is pure Cows -- loud, noisy, brash, cryptically odd, dense, and wonderfully strange. At times the recording style soars; at others, it sags.