Unsane

Emerging from the same New York City rock underground that launched the careers of Helmet, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Surgery, Unsane have long staked their claim as the scene's most extreme band. After meeting at college (the name of which cannot be revealed -- unpaid student loans and all, you understand) in 1988, the original trio of Chris Spencer, Peter Shore and drummer Charles Ondras began playing the usual East Coast firetraps almost immediately. The group attracted the attention of the Minneapolis indie Treehouse Records (onetime home of the Bastards and Babes In Toyland), who released the group's debut single "This Town" b/w "Urge To Kill," featuring cover art designed to drag San Francisco's notorious Zodiac killer to justice (or at least make friends with him).

Additional recordings with Wharton Tiers yielded tracks for a Circuit Records full-length debut. Sadly, the label owner seems to have spent all his savings on nasal-congestion reliever and the album was never released. The band bided their time by releasing subsequent singles for the Glitterhouse, Subpop and PCP labels, setting the stage for their eponymous debut album on Matador in 1991.

In 1992, a furious recording and touring schedule came to an abrupt halt with the untimely death of Charles Ondras. His replacement, former Swans/Foetus Inc. drummer Vinnie Signorelli, joined the band in the fall of '92, just in time to begin work on compositions for Unsane album #2. During the interim, Matador released Singles, a compilation of the aforementioned 7" and compilation tracks. Whatever portion of '93 that was not spent promoting additional stop-gap/rip-off titles (the just-released Peel Sessions, including old and new material) went into the creation of Total Destruction. Co-produced by Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans, Live Skull, Cop Shoot Cop), Unsane's major label christening is anything but a crossover attempt. Successfully upping the ante on their patented blend of volume, velocity and violence, Unsane have taken their brutal art to a new level.
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