Big Black was a noise rock band that brought back the sense of danger and confrontation that rock and roll hadn‰’t seen since the Sid Vicious died. Where the Sex Pistols pissed people off largely with their image of unashamed anti-conformity, Big Black only needed their music. Steve Albini was the band‰’s ringleader and had no ideas of boundaries sonically nor lyrically.

Big Black sounds like a knife stuck in a food disposal. Both Albini‰’s guitar and Dave Riley‰’s bass were made from metal instead of the standard wood. When lathered in distortion and fuzz, the instruments became piecing, punching and almost overbearing. The band never had an actual drummer, a practical move for touring freedom, but the sound of the Roland drum machine would add an irreplaceable industrial, empty, mechanic force behind Albini‰’s razor blade guitar chords. Much like Psychocandy and The Velvet Underground & Nico, Atomizer manages to sound off-putting and noisy even today.

While the noise is certainly a force, it was Albini‰’s subject matter that really got under the skin of their audience. The album pulls no punches, opening with a song about ritualistic child abuse that ends with Albini groaning “Fuck daddy‰” in between exasperated gasps for air. He also discusses violent alcoholism, post-war trauma, contracted assassins, money-hungry corrupted police and the blurred line between sadism and abuse. Unless you‰’re Ted Bundy, Albini will make you question his sanity and your own undying support for free speech somewhere in the album.

Big Black‰’s business model was also a large part of their identity. They signed no contracts, trusted no one, and recorded and produced their music. This gave them a sense of autonomy and the ability to make the art that they wanted, without the concern for record label sales or the possibility that Wal-Mart wouldn‰’t carry an album entitled “Songs About Fucking.‰” What Big Black left behind was the idea that music should be uncompromising, free from social norms and money. The result is an album that makes contemporaries like Metallica sound absolutely pedestrian and would make Tipper Gore foam at the mouth.