The Crust

Drawing on the tradition of the Butthole Surfers, the Austin, TX, band Crust creates willfully disturbing tracks based around such themes as sexually transmitted disease, public institutions, and life at rock bottom. The group's music is awash in the sounds of samples, guitars and noise-making household objects. The combo's first release was the industrial cacophony of the Heart of Crust EP. A self-titled debut LP followed, again on Trance Syndicate Records (Butthole Surfer King Coffey's label). in 1991. The harrowing effort featured such feverish paeans to low-living as "Head Lice" and "Hard Stool" couched in the blare of off-kilter percussion, otherworldy loops and samples and the overwhelming compression of layered instrumentation. Crust next unleashed their (barely) harnessed chaos via 1994's Crusty Love album. Thematically, the group upped the ante even further, plumbing the depths of crudeness with tracks such as "Chlamydia Is Not a Flower" and such lyrical sentiments as "You've never had it so good until you've had a hermaphrodite."
© Erik Hage /TiVo