Unsane were a New York band, one of the greatest of the 1990s, which invented a fiercely innovative style even though it was grafted onto the aging trunk of rock�n�roll. The violence was that of hardcore, but as if stripped of emotion. Every song was a cold, insistent assault on the gut, leaving very little melody behind. Unsane started from New York �noise-rock,� amplified its volume and frenzy, turned it into a deafening, chaotic hurricane of oversized musical gestures, and fused it with the anguished, apocalyptic atmospheres of the Big Black. The result was some of the most powerful and chilling music of the end of the century.

Unsane were formed at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville back in 1984 by singer and guitarist Chris Spencer (not related to the more famous Jon Spencer), bassist Peter Shore, and drummer Charlie Ondras (later also in Boss Hog). It would take seven years before they managed to record an album.

In the meantime several singles were released. From the very first 1989 single, the hammering sequence of minimalist guitar phrases driving Burn (Treehouse) left no doubt: Unsane were disciples (even louder and more unrefined ones) of Sonic Youth. The perverse �musicality� of This Town emerges from a driving bass riff colliding with sudden atonal guitar outbursts; it is precisely from these duels that the track�s formidable momentum takes shape. On the B-side, Urge To Kill, Spencer emits bestial screams over a landscape of deafening guitar atonality, detonated and left to reverberate over a steady drumbeat.

In 1990 Concrete Bed (Glitterhouse) was released, another breathless rush of dissonance. Spencer continued to use the guitar like a machine gun, plucking the strings as if pulling triggers. From the same year comes the recording of the single My Right (released only in 1992 by PCP with Jungle Music and Blood Boy), in which Spencer pushed his verbose and anti-narcissistic instrumental terrorism even further, eclipsing everything else.

Unsane (Matador, 1991) is an uncontrolled explosion of glorious catastrophic riffs and rhythmic tornadoes. The dense sonic mass, tragic intensity, and devastating sonorities place them at the summit of the new gods of �noise-rock.� As anticipated by the singles, the elements of their sound are Spencer�s fractured screams (often processed to intensify the effect), Shore�s vibrating rumble (the only melodic component in the harmony), Ondras�s pounding pulse (a cross between gamelan, a stampeding herd of elephants, and a concert of industrial presses, accelerated and warped by a powerful overdose), and Spencer�s ever-present screeching guitar noise.
In such turmoil�within the hysterical tribalism of Organ Donor, the terrified screams of Vandal-x, the superhuman riff of Maggot, the drill-like distortions of Bath, and the Sonic Youth-like cascades of brutality in Cracked Up�the noisy tradition of MC5, Chrome, Big Black, and Jesus Lizard triumphs. There is only the faintest trace of melody, and even that appears only after the ritual has been consumed, leaving nothing but a carcass of harmony to be picked apart. Their generation is the �cyberpunk� one, evident in the delirium of dissonance and ritual cadences of HLL.
These are pieces that do not develop rationally�in fact, they do not really develop at all: they are simply uncontrolled eruptions of sound. Exterminator builds an atmosphere of terror by layering harsh guitar noise over a syncopated rhythm, and the coda employs a fuzz tone that quickly grows into a deafening drone. Exceptions include Aza-2000, which could pass for a heavy metal track, and the unrestrained pow-wow of Action Man, which even gains coherence from moment to moment (instead of dissolving into the usual nuclear catastrophes) and might be their masterpiece.
The only moment of relative calm comes at the end, White Hand, but it feels more like the thriller introduction to Big Black�s Kerosene than an acid-rock jam (even if the format suggests the latter). The reference is even more direct in Cut, which builds the same electric tension but, once again, does not explode�or rather, it explodes in the literal sense of disappearing into an excess of noise.
A sense of tragedy worthy of a Holocaust documentary dominates the work. Their inner ghosts are made of flesh and blood�and they are cannibals.

The death of Ondras from an overdose (in 1992, at the age of twenty-six) marked the end of the most ferocious trio in America. Vincent Signorelli (ex Swans, Foetus, and Lubricated Goat) soon took his place.

Total Destruction (Matador, 1993) is another work of the same stature. Spencer, Shore, and Signorelli form a perfectly tight trio and, despite the extreme cacophony, one that is increasingly sophisticated. The glacially brutal sound of the first album is now placed at the service of more complex, equally jagged compositions.
The joint attack of guitar and bass immediately establishes, from Body Bomb (one of their masterpieces), the solemn, martial, superhuman key in which the entire work unfolds. The album effectively begins with what is also its tragic and threatening peak. These are sounds that evoke oppressive, menacing scenarios beyond words. More than New York, one thinks of Chicago�the Chicago of Big Black.
The kinship between Albini and Spencer is evident in Broke, in which the guitar strikes in non-melodic bursts, in waves, then briefly lifts into two-chord fragments of melody. Alongside Slint and Don Caballero, the Unsane are redefining the very concept of instrumental rock composition in tracks such as Black Book, where the voice becomes increasingly inaudible and nonessential, while tension grows ever more spasmodic, forming a savage, dense, brutal maelstrom; as in Get Away, highly agitated, in which the trio loses its monolithic geometry and guitar and bass construct a small contrapuntal masterpiece; or in Dispatched, with a phenomenal bass-and-drum performance that mimics the advance of a panzer army and a succession of seismic shocks. These are spectacles of rare power, like watching Cassius Clay beat up a child.
That catastrophic art of dark and malignant sound culminates perhaps in Trench, a slow, methodical sarabande born at the intersection of Black Sabbath, the early (and darkest) Swans, and the early (minimalist) Sonic Youth.
No one like them knows how to turn the absence of God into music. Every shade of pain emanating from the human condition finds a corresponding, equally devastating form in their harmonic language. In Straight, one of their most vertiginous attacks, the guitar grinds melody into a monotonous sequence of repeated chords, then dissolves into a long, dull distortion submerged in the mix, while bass and drums drive forward frenetically in a mixture of terror and tribalism. The effect is overwhelming, intoxicating, and at the same time depressing�like a dose of heroin.
Much of their sound�s uniqueness comes from the role of the guitar: an eminently �percussive� role, as in early Sonic Youth, which avoids solos as in hardcore, and is tuned (or rather detuned) in a harsh, spiky manner (its timbre is the sonic equivalent of barbed wire), played mostly in rapid, highly dissonant arpeggios. In addition, the guitar often doubles as bass, methodically repeating fragments of melody, so that in the end the song seems almost to be played without a guitar. The dramatic effect is always overwhelming.
The more �musical,� more accessible tracks conceal in their burning innards aborted fetuses of rock tradition: S.O.S., which borrows something from the most unruly, noisy bacchanals of the Stones; Road Trip, in which a monstrous bass line and cascading staccato guitar bursts do not suffocate a finally linear riff, though no less rigid, rocky, and stentorian; and Wayne, which can be considered their version of rock and roll.
The simple instrumental motif, repeated endlessly with a weary, anemic gait in Throw It Away, suggests that Unsane too were influenced, mutatis mutandis, by Codeine. The final track, 455, instead immerses Unsane in the language of industrial music, slow and implacable, like a drill boring through stone.

Scattered Smothered And Covered (Amphetamine Reptile, 1995) is a somewhat tired work that reveals the need for the band�s sound to evolve. Chris Spencer remained the only original member of Unsane, after the departure of bassist Pete Shore (replaced by Dave Curran). The cannibalistic style of Scrape and Empty Cartridge retains all its monstrous tension, but a more infernal abyss-blues like Alleged is far more frightening. The Melvins-like grinding grunge, built on titanic riffs and tank-like rhythms, in Out and Get Off My Back is effective, but perhaps the shock is strongest when Unsane remember they are a rock�n�roll band in the overwhelming charge of Blame Me.

An Unsane record is always a heart-stopping experience. Regardless of taste, their sound is extreme and terrifying. If the previous album had disappointed those who considered them the colossi of noise rock, Chris Spencer (the l�der m�ximo) makes up for it with Occupational Hazard (Relapse, 1998), a collection of cannon blasts bordering on death metal. The torrential drumming, walls of distortion, and hoarse screams of Committed announce that the band is once again in top form. And This Plan crowns the comeback with a storm of armored riffs that allows no breathing space, followed by the no less grim and martial charges of Stop and Sick, and the superhuman apotheosis of Lead. From the general chaos emerge more articulated pieces, such as Over Me and Hazmat, which nevertheless still rely on the most horrifying noise�simply organized around suspense rather than raw violence. Increasingly jagged sonorities pierce through Take In The Stray and Smells Like Rain, which are more existential riddles than songs. The textures fray, the riffs derail, the voice gets lost in the labyrinths of its own despair: what remains towering over the desolation is the deafening pulse of the rhythm section. Vincent Signorelli (formerly of Swans and Foetus) on drums makes an enormous difference�the album is half his. Dave Curran on bass performs veteran-level feats. A far-from-perfect record, it nonetheless signaled a crisis without resolution.

Unsane disbanded and Lambhouse (Relapse, 2004) is an anthology.

Relocated to San Francisco, Cutthroats 9 (Man's Ruin, 2000) is Chris Spencer's new project, a valuable addition to his canon of dirty, stormy, sludgy rock'n'roll.

Bassist Dave Curran formed The JJ PAradise Players CLub, that released Wine Cooler Blow-Out (Tee Pee, 2001).

Unsare reunited after a seven-year hiatus and released Blood Run (Relapse, 2005), but it was hardly a revolutionary album. Overall a harrowing experience, but hard to remember which track was which: a case of awe-inspiring dejavu.

Unsane was finally able to display mastarful musicianship with the more structured and melodic songs of Visqueen (Ipecac, 2007), notably Against the Grain and This Stops at the River. Drenched in a horrible mutation of the blues, they rose up to eviscerate a lattice of primordial emotions. Others went straight for the jugular (Only Pain, Last Man Standing). And one attempted to sonically depict their world: the eight-minute apocalyptic closer East Broadway.

Songs like Rat and Metropolis on Wreck (2012) are equally vibrant and intimidating, while No Chance shares the harmonica with the previous album's This Stops at the River and Stuck (which by their standards is a sleepy ballad) attempts a more dynamic format.

Unsane stoically continued their almost religious mission of unwavering noise-rock on Sterilize (Southern Lord, 2017), which sounds almost exactly like the early albums. The difference, of course, is the age of the performers, who are now all middle-aged. Their albums are like terrifying echoes of a catastrophe that happened a long time ago, but that still revereberates through the ruined landscape Chris Spencer outdoes himself as a shouter in No Reprieve, his guitar races at lighting speed in Distance, and Dave Curran's bass is a living thunder in Factory. Less noisy but more hysterical, Grind borders on death-metal, and Avail is a dark bluesy dirge, mostly instrumental, that borders on Black Sabbath's sludge.

A lost album surfaced as Improvised Munitions & Demo (2021).