Theory Of Ruin - Counter Culture Nosebleed

Label: Escape Artist
Year: 2002

Alex Newport spent the first part of the 1990's plying a thick noise sludge that flirted ever so slightly around the edges of "alternative rock", with his band Fudge Tunnel. You probably heard them at some point or another. Or, at least you should have heard them. Still could if you wanted.
Then, in the middle of the 1990's he hooked up (not in a Biblical sense...I don't think) with Sepultura mainman Max Cavalera to create a metallic, grinding, grooving, hardcore, industrial-adjacent monster with Nailbomb. They had one proper album that is a legit classic of the genre(s), which again, I feel like you've no doubt heard it. Still out there for you to hear in the off chance you were born too late (Saint Vitus ref!).
So after the relative success of Nailbomb Mr. Newport dives headlong into production for the last half of the 1990s, with no real new musical output of his own to speak of. Now this is just my own hypothesis, but, this is also just my own blog at this point, so it's kind of a lawless place where unchecked hypothesis can just go flying around willy-nilly with nary a ramification or consequence. Liberating. But anyway, it's my guess that while producing the underrated S.F. band Totimoshi, Alex Newport gets a jolt of inspiration to strap on his guitar again and rattle off a handful of noise rock inspired rippers. Some of the old Fudge Tunnel grime is still there. Some of the old alternative rock tendencies are still there. And there's a scant whiff of the old Nailbomb "Earache-cum-Alternative Tentacles-cum-Wax Trax" all out assault.
But mostly it's an urgent, beefy, take on the noise rock touchstones you know and love, as filtered through a post hardcore lens. Two great tastes?

Lest I make it sound like a solo act, rest assured the rhythm section of Theory Of Ruin most definitelty holds is down. Ches Smith, who played with The Secret Chiefs 3, John Zorn, Trevor Dunn, Xiu Xiu, and Elliot Sharp (and a million others), is on drums. David Link, who cut his teeth in the weirdly heavy Boston noise rock scene of the early 90's in Claymore, and then went on to play with Slapshot(?!) and Give, is on bass.

DL