Review by Sonny for Upsidedown Cross - Upsidedown Cross (1991)

During my latest expedition into the most far-flung corners of the Doomiverse I ended up in 1991 with the self-titled debut of Bostonian sludge/doom outfit, Upsidedown Cross. The band was made up of three members of punk/noise crew Kilslug including the weirdly-named Larry Lifeless on vocals, Cheez on bass and Rico Petroleum on guitar. The lineup was filled out with second guitarist Scott Vangel (aka Shoehorn) and, for this album at least, drummer J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. fame. A later incarnation also included the infamous Seth Putnam on bass.

Well, this is a bit of an oddball in the doom canon with it's amalgam of sludge, doom and noise rock topped off by Larry Lifeless' disconcerting vocal style. This guy is every bit as divisive as King Diamond or Cirith Ungol's Tim Baker with his apathetic, whining style that sounds like Bad Brains' HR coming out of general anaesthetic. Add to this the two guitarists' penchant for ditching any kind of riff and just taking off on their own discordant way at the drop of a hat and it all starts to sound a bit anarchic (although as someone once said, "This is Boston, not L.A."). At times the songs only seem to be held together by Mascis' drumming (which is far better than I would have expected) as he heroically tries to keep things moving forward. The lyrics are deliberately provocative and a bit immature sounding - Shakespeare or Bob Dylan would be unlikely to lose much sleep over them - and Larry Lifeless' delivery makes them sound like the ramblings of a genuinely disturbed human being. The band's live performances were apparently legendarily demented with tales of drink and drug-fuelled psychotic performances, especially from their loosely-hinged frontman that I can definitely believe if this is how they sounded on record.

I am not 100% sure exactly how I feel about the album in all honesty. I kind of applaud it's lack of concession to anyone or anything and it's anarchic flavour harks back to bands like MC5 and The Stooges (only tripping their asses off) which is always good in my book, but the vocals really aren't great, in fact after the first couple of lines of the self-titled opener I thought the guy was taking the piss it sounded that bad, and I sometimes wished they would just at least try to hold it together long enough for the riffs to sink in. I'm definitely glad to have checked it out and it had it's moments, but I wouldn't buy it and probably won't return to it much in future.