Reception

Patrick Kennedy from allmusic called it a a brilliant and daring debut that "assaults the senses like the Swans

Swans (band)

Swans are an influential American post-punk band initially active from 1982 to 1997, led by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira. The band was one of the few groups to emerge from the early 1980s New York No Wave scene and stay intact into the next decade. Formed by Gira in...

 or Foetus

Foetus (band)

Foetus is the primary musical outlet of industrial music pioneer J. G. Thirlwell. Until 1995 the band underwent various name changes, all including the word foetus. Monikers adopted at different times include Foetus Under Glass, You've Got Foetus On Your Breath and Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel...

 before them, but tempers that art-scum priggishness with clear roots in punk and classic rock." Piero Scaruffi

Piero Scaruffi

Piero Scaruffi received a degree in Mathematics in 1982 from University of Turin, where he did work on the General Theory of Relativity. For a number of years he was the head of the Artificial Intelligence Center at Olivetti, based in Cupertino, California. He has been a visiting scholar at...

 gave the album 8 out of 10, describing the record as "Cascades of atrocious sounds destabilized its songs and generated a form of hysterical tribalism." It would be placed at #24 on his "Best Punk-Rock Albums of All Times" list as well as selecting it as the sixth best album of 1991.

Tour

During the tour supporting the album, Charlie Ondras died of a heroin overdose during the 1992 New Music Seminar

New Music Seminar

The New Music Seminar was a series of multi-venue music showcases held annually in New York City, in the month of June, from 1980 to 1995, then relaunched in 2009....

 in New York.

Covers

Death metal

Death metal

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

 band Entombed

Entombed (band)

Entombed is a Swedish death metal band which formed in 1987 under the name of Nihilist. Though Entombed began their career as an early pioneer of Scandinavian death metal which initially differed itself from its American counterpart with its distinct guitar tone, by the early 1990s their sound had...

 covered "Vandal-X" on their self-titled compilation album

Entombed (album)

Entombed is a 1997 self-titled compilation album by Swedish metal band Entombed that contains reedition of tracks previously released on EPs.-Track listing:* Tracks 1-3 taken from the Out of Hand EP* Tracks 4-6 taken from the Stranger Aeons EP...

 in 1997.

Track listing

Personnel

Unsane

• Charlie Ondras
  Charlie Ondras
  Charlie Ondras was a drummer from New York and a founding member of the noise rock band Unsane, formerly Lawn-Chair-Blisters. He also collaborated with Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez under the name Boss Hog and appeared on the band's first two releases...
  
   – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Pete Shore – bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Chris Spencer – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  

Additional musicians and production

• Simon Bodger – photography
  Photography
  Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
  
  
• Wharton Tiers
  Wharton Tiers
  Wharton Tiers is an American audio engineer, record producer, drummer and percussionist.- Biography :Diplomed from Villanova University , he moved to New York City in 1976 and was part of the No Wave scene.As an audio engineer and record producer, he has worked on projects such as Sonic Youth,...
  
   – production
  Record producer
  A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
  
  , engineering
  Audio engineering
  An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
  
  
• Unsane – production