Unsane is a noise rock band from New York City wh0 created a sonic storm of distorted guitar, bass, drums and shouted vocals, in “Scattered, Smothered and Covered,” the band’s third album and first to feature Dave Curran on bass. The album is named in honor of Waffle House hash browns with onion and cheese, but the name takes a darker turn once you look at the cover because the cover is a bloody mattress with a hammer that insinuates violence.
“Scrape,” the abum’s first track, immediately smacks you in the face with a noisy attack of guitar noise and dissonant guitarworks. The bass on the album really stands out due to it’s midrange snarl and distortion that, at times, keeps the song driving instead of an overdubbed guitar.
The next song “Alleged” starts out on a calmer note with bluesy harmonica, a Hi-Hat beat, and a clean bass run before launching into the bass riff from the intro with added guitar and distortion. The song is about a guy who gets into the wrong part of town and gets mugged to pay the mugger’s rent.
“Blame Me” starts with a fast, slidey punk riff before a nasal attack of the bass comes in to grace your ears with a fast, noise filled attack. During the chorus the bass and drums take on the driving force of the song while the guitar does a semi-blues lead creating a dissonant assault upon the listener’s ear.
“Out” is a slow, powerful contrast with a simple riff and occasionally a dissonant slide guitar part that comes in to add a layer of harshness. The chorus or B section is a fret-hand-muted bass with a cool drum part provided by Vincent Signorelli with occasional guitar noise overtop, creating an overall sparse composition which, in my opinion, is Unsane’s most underrated style of playing.
In contrast to the almost depressive sound of the previous song,“Can’t See” is a more upbeat song that starts out with the bass playing the main riff before the drums come in. The song repeats the start before going into a B section.
“Get Off My Back” is a return to the sparse, slower style song and my personal favorite song on the record. The song starts with drums before the bass comes in with a simple two note part which fits the song perfectly. After half a minute of this, the guitar creeps into the song playing harmonics until it joins the bass for a short as the singer yells the one line of the song “Get Off My Back.”
“Blew” is more upbeat and starts out with a fairly fun riff before going back into the first part of the song accompanied with vocals. Overall, I’d say this may be the most commercial song on the record and the most uncharacteristic of the band.
“Empty Cartridge’s” start is reminiscent of “The Jesus Lizard” before kicking into the riff and blasting the listener with Unsane’s signature noise- filled attack. The distorted guitar creates a push that helps gives the song dynamics.
“No Loss” starts out with only the drums but the rest of the band kicks in pretty quick. The fast-paced song still finds space duce to a pause in the riff. The vocals on this song differ from every other song on the record, and I can’t find out why. Could be the vocals were tracked later at a different studio, had a guest singer, or even different vocal production.
The next song “Ruin” kicks into full swing and immediately the fist thing that smacked me in the face was Vincent’s tom drum playing which is very primal feeling fits the noise attack of Chris and Dave.
The last song, “Swim” resembles “Get Off My Back” but has more going on while still maintaining that melancholic tone of the earlier song. “Swim,” a surprisingly driven song, probably punches harder than any other song while giving a depressive feeling commonly found in Doom Metal.
Unsane’s album took me on an up and down ride that never let up.
