In the tradition of muscular two-piece hard rock bands such as Lightning Bolt and Death From Above 1979, dwells Los Angeles-based Big Business and their sophomore full-length effort Here Come the Waterworks, their second for Hydra Head Records. Produced by former Jack Endino accomplice Phil Ek, whose credits include Built To Spill’s There's Nothing Wrong With Love and The Shins’ coming-out-party Chutes Too Narrow, Waterworks digs its heels in early for a rawk-ously heavy low-end ride and hardly relents, even though you might want it to.
Let me just get this out of the way: Big Business is by no means breaking new ground musically. Their sound basically boils down to two guys grinding out beefy hardcore as loud and heavy as humanly possible. Big Guy Jared Warren wrestles bass and vocals, Little Guy Coady Willis mans the drums and scant backing vocals. And how they do beat the crap out of their instruments! However, with song titles like “I’ll Give You Something to Cry About” and “Grounds for Divorce” and an irreverent myspace profile, there is a persistent tongue-in-cheekiness to their growling groove that betrays a lack of seriousness towards their material and themselves, which is refreshing given the overly-serious nature typical of the hardcore milieu. It should come as no surprise then that the duo of Big Business was recruited to fill out the rhythm section of post-metalist weirdos The Melvins for the recording of an album and a subsequent tour.
Although Waterworks leaps off from a point of departure and seldom veers before arrival, it makes a couple of sonically surprising - albeit brief - pit stops along the journey that may shock, but won’t confound the listener. Five tracks in, “Another Fourth of July” suddenly veers into actual singing – all melodic-like and everything — but then dives right back right into Jared Warren’s post-adolescent grrrrowl. And, an entirely instrumental track “Another Beautiful Day in the Pacific Northwest,” rounds out the set.
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Article comments
1 - jerry
solid review for sure..definitely will have to check these guys out. I know that they recently went on the road with Mastodon so that's definitely a plus.
2 - Party Fernandez
Hey Jerry,
actually they've never toured with Mastadon. They have toured with, and are IN (as mentioned), the Melvins. maybe that's what you meant.
also, i think this album is brilliant. the vocals are haunting, almost like an opera performed by the dead. the drumming is jaw-droppingly good and the songs as a whole make you wanna pump your fist, almost in an Andrew WK "get wet" kinda way...without sounding at all the same. don't ask, just go buy it.