Sweaty, unhinged and with one of them frequently naked, few underground rock bands remain as revered as the Jesus Lizard. The US band’s early 90s albums Goat and Liar inspired awe in American alt-rock royalty such as Kurt Cobain, Steve Albini and Henry Rollins, and the band’s live sets cemented their status: guitarist Duane Denison, bassist David Wm Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly locked into near-ritualistic rock’n’roll while frontman David Yow, his genitals flapping, careened into the audience, surfacing like a pink dolphin fighting against a net of hairy arms and plaid shirts.
Hatched in Texas before relocating to Chicago, the band’s initial run lasted from 1987 to 1999. Since 2008 they have periodically reconvened for live “re-enactments” (Yow’s term), but their new album, Rack, is their first fresh music in 26 years: a tense, teeth-bared sewer rat of a record. “We had to be brutal and blunt with our assessment every step of the way so nothing came off flat or dull,” says Denison – dapper, charming, occasionally distracted by the whims of his cat – from his Nashville home. “I checked out other people’s old-guy reunion albums and made mental notes about what was good and what wasn’t. One thing I noticed is that they seem overly mature: really trying to show how wise they are and how they’ve grown. But that’s not fun. We want mindless mayhem along with an element of sophistication – that was always our thing.”
