Sutcliffe Jugend-s/t (Susan Lawly)
This hardly needs an introduction or another detailed review. But, having listened to it for the first time in a bit, I just think it warrants an acknowledgement of how well these tracks continue to hold up. A few years shy of 45 years old, and the material here can still credibly stand alongside albums decades its junior, if not blowing them away entirely. In terms of sheer, maniacal intensity and pushing of all boundaries, this remains frequently imitated, but seldom surpassed. Just remarkable when you think about how limited and primitive the equipment utilized was. A journey to the very edges of sound and sanity, and whose influence is plain across years of p.e. and noise output.
The We Spit On Our Graves reissue on Cold Spring isn't bad by any means, but I've always felt this was the far superior CD complitation of early SJ.
Sutcliffe Jugend-Death Mask (Freek)
To follow up on that, we have the '94 return. I'm not sure I'd ever listened to this in such close proximity to the 80s material before, and it proved how rewarding it can sometimes be to listen to albums by the same artist in close succession, and the insights it can provide. I think I'd always somewhat naively considered this album just a basic continuation of where SJ left off in '82, with the focus being on pure intensity and harshness. Those elements are certainly there on tracks like "Metal Device" and "The Killing of Heather." But overall, these tracks have a much more restrained element to them, with a clear focus on creating and building up unsettling and schizophrenic atmospheres of dread and paranoia to go along with the noise and feedback. Just as earlier having that context with SJ's past proved insightful, here the knowledge of where they'd go in the future comes in handy, as you can clearly draw a line from Death Mask to what they'd unleash with The Victim As Beauty a few years later. More experimental tracks like "The Best Room" with its use of a violin bow also hint at where they'd go even later on in the 00s.
To clarify the constrast even more, you get the archive tracks at the end, and are fully transported once again into the all out assault of the '82 era, with the ultimate feedback endurance test of "King Ian" being a fitting conclusion.
