(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Therapy? were formed in 1990 in Belfast by Andy Cairns (vocals and guitar) and Michael McKeegan (bass) and immediately stood out with a sound infinitely more violent than that of their contemporaries from Northern Ireland.

Therapy? offered a fierce and dark version of the old “dark punk,” revised according to the claustrophobic visions of Big Black. Starting with the single Meat Abstract and its apocalyptic momentum, their records were filled with sickly emotions.

On the mini-album Babyteeth (Wiiija, 1991), that inspiration fuels the atrocious racket of Animal Bones and the funky whirlwinds of Innocent X, as if Black Sabbath were hurled at double speed against a sonic wall of Blue Cheer. Frenetic tracks like Loser Cop recall the experimental hardcore of the late Black Flag. Opened by a hammering Led Zeppelin-style riff and driven along demonic tribalism while the guitar repeats a fatalistic melody, Punishment Kiss remains one of their masterpieces. The whole is compact like a torpedo.

With vocal distortions pushed to the edge of endurance and a barely more controlled animalistic drive, the EP Pleasure Death (Wiiija, 1992) is almost a concept album about the dark side of the human psyche. Stylistically, the band remains on the fringes of rock music, storming heavy metal and danceable industrial in Skinning Pit, drawing on the cerebral exploits of Black Flag (Shitkicker and the instrumental DLC), and mimicking the Grand Guignol of Black Sabbath (Fantasy Bag). Indicating the path forward is the finale, Potato Junkies, a strong melodic track in the style of Nirvana, with the infamous line “James Joyce is fucking my sister.”

The two records were combined on the CD Caucasian Psychosis (Touch & Go, 1992).

Their favorite theme of mental deviance is developed fully on the album Nurse (A&M, 1992). The lyrics seem to trace the nightmare of a devastated psyche. The music, by contrast, calms down, some harmonic harshness is smoothed, and the punk venom is dried out. Nausea even resembles the grunge-pop anthems of Nirvana. Teethgrinder (another classic) quickly returns to their preferred apocalyptic and post-industrial climates, filled with driving syncopated polyrhythms, monotonously brutal riffs, subsonic bass rumbles, and vocals reduced to pure sampling. From there on, it’s a headlong plunge into the inferno of Ministry, reaching the depths with the grindcore locomotive and the distorted proclamation of Accelerator. The Native American tribalism and guitar hail of Neck Freak instead provide intermittent respite for Cairns’s desperate chorus, in the purest Albini style.
The sound remains dense, dark, intense, and deafening, though more considered, influenced by Helmet and Jesus Lizard but with restraint. The album also opens up to atmospheric passages, such as in the long psychedelic nightmare of Gone, fatalistically lost in the lands of Nico, or the even more surreal “dub” of Deep Sleep, traversed by jolts of dissonant chords and off-kilter percussion.

The evolution continues with the singles and EPs of 1993: the band adopted a more professional style, though no less brutal. They further refined the jagged gothic of their beginnings and delivered Screamager (one of their peaks), Totally Random Man, and Autosurgery on the EP Short Sharp Shock (A&M, 1993), Turn and Speedball on the EP Face The Strange (A&M, 1993), and the single Opal Mantra (1993), with furious melodies in the style of Nirvana. These tracks were summarized in the U.S. on the EP Hats Off To The Insane (A&M, 1993). Therapy? had become a cross between Husker Du and Buzzcocks.

Down that slope, Troublegum (A&M, 1994) arrived at the polished productions of punk-pop with Die Laughing, Nowhere, and Hellbelly. Once again, the good intentions (to create extremist avant-rock) end up as commercial ambitions.

On Infernal Love (A&M, 1995), the band regains some of its dignity in the dark, solemn pathos of A Moment Of Clarity and Bad Mother. The lyrics revisit sordid and depraved themes. Had it been released before the previous album, it would have been a typical transitional work. There are still sly punk-pop winks, like Stories and Loose, but they are justified by the energetic outbursts of Epilepsy and Misery. An inscrutable ballad like Bowels Of Love manages, at the very least, to evoke the ghost of Nick Cave.