Rack

Rack is what fans have waited a long time for. .... It’s partly completing unfinished business, returning to the high-water mark of those Touch and Go days. And it’s partly because, together, they make an unholy racket that makes them feel good.

In short; ‘Rack’ is everything you could want from a new The Jesus Lizard record, with some extra musical chops and lyrical smarts thrown in. This great band might be growing old, but they’ve not lost a speck of their singular crazed brilliance.

Rack is one of the most fascinating records you'll hear this year, and it's up there with their best. [Sep 2024, p.74]

To say that the band still have a bite to their sound might be a little unkind to a group of men who may not have most of their own teeth these days, but Rack is testament to the need to grow old disgracefully.

Rack is living, breathing, sweaty proof the Jesus Lizard can write songs and give them shape in the studio just as well as they ever did, and it honestly stands beside the best of their Touch & Go catalog in both spirit and execution. And they still hit like a crescent wrench to the face. Which is a compliment.

What If? finds Yow in ruminative, conversational mode. But for the most part they still offer tightly controlled chaos as skilfully as they did a third of a century ago.

The back half of the record is where the band really catch fire, though, ripping through a slew of high-octane rockers from “Falling Down” through “Is That Your Hand?” The only real miss is “Armistice Day,” a tedious trudge of doom-rock that sticks out from the rest of the pack.

For the faithful, Rack is another thrilling chapter of one of the most significant noise bands ever to do it. For the uninitiated, it will be instantly apparent why so many groups claim them as an influence.

Following 2009’s ‘re-enactment’ shows, here, finally, is this fabulous, full-blooded seventh LP. Aficionados will be punching the air within the first minute of opener Hide & Seek: it’s all there. [Oct 2024, p.82]

For all their upstart imitators, The Jesus Lizard return as the kings of the scene. [Oct 2024, p.101]

The opening track and first single “Hide & Seek” is built around a hard charging, hooky punk riff that sounds more like The Offspring than the Lizard of old. Yow’s vocals, higher in the mix than they used to be, have a nasal, sneering quality that’s more actorly than unhinged. [Sep 2024, p.50]

The essence is there, and it’s a force, to be sure. If it doesn’t feel as raw, as dangerous, or as alive as it did in the past, well, once a wildfire’s burned through a place, it’s going to be hard for it to relight itself. But those embers are still glowing with that evil heat, and Rack still carries more than enough weight to rest among all but the best of the Lizard’s material.