The Jesus Lizard: Rack

2009. The first of two summer editions of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival at Butlins, Minehead. It’s Saturday night in Centre Stage. Front row. And I’m sporting a goatee beard….

David Yow doesn’t like goatees. Barely 50 seconds after he saunters onstage bug-eyed and malevolent, his gaze bores into me like laser beams. A bull to a red rag, he charges… Bang! (Not a reference to The Jesus Lizard’s 2000 compilation.) Five minutes later. He charges again… and again. After the fourth stage dive, he’s decided that’s enough. Amid the sweat and bruises forming from the odd limb and stray cowboy boot, it is confirmed: this is The Jesus Lizard experience.

The next night I watch the second chapter of this unruly racket unfold from afar – namely at the back of the venue as some other poor bastard at the front suffers a similar fate. Getting Yowed, as it were.

Looking back, and the two nights were a triumphant return for a band many had waited years to see, and while the obligatory ‘comeback’ album was mooted like many others from acts entering their twilight years, in The Jesus Lizard’s case, it never came.

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The ensuing years saw Yow, Duane Denison, David Wm. Sims and Mac McNeilly play shows here and there, but there was never any concrete talk of new music. Until a mysterious email late last year from the band’s would-be label, Ipecac, which contained The Jesus Lizard logo and the numbers 2024. Yes, something was brewing, and less than 12 months later consider it brewed.

That it? The aptly titled Rack.

They’ve done the era-defining record thing. They’ve done the major label thing. Now the shackles are off and they’re doing their Indian summer thing. Per the initial press release, Yow spoke of how much fun it was making music together again, and you can feel it with these songs. The same way you felt it during Tomahawk’s Tonic Immobility. The same way you felt it during Melvins’ Tarantula Heart. Older heads that still maintain that ability to, indeed, shred.

On Rack, it’s not long before Yow’s grotesque yarn-spinning of murder and lust have the mind racing ten to the dozen. On the opening siege, Hide and Seek, he recounts a protagonist getting hunted by a witch casting the same spells Yow himself has cast on his audiences. Yes, the tides have turned, albeit briefly. Take the meandering What If? which sees Yow’s next character (or is it?) falling into the clutches of a widower whose grief is overshadowed by her psychopathic tendencies. What If? is new-era Jesus Lizard as Denson’s creeping guitar lines form an ominous backdrop to Yow’s stories that feel like the result of a Chuck Palahniuk binge.

Meanwhile, Armistice Day and Grind are held together by Sims’ down-on-the-chain bass lines and Denison’s slow, lurching guitars that have the same effect of salt being rubbed into a weeping wound. Again, there’s more unlawful death from Yow, with Chandler-esque narratives that have you searching for a copy of Lady in the Lake.

Lord Govida follows a similar lineage, but this time through Yow’s fever dreams, as he proceeds to take his enemies to the sword through the early hours. So too on closing track, Swan the Dog, where the protagonist is in search of the last vestiges of blood throughout this fantastical slaughter.

Elsewhere, on Alexis Feels Sick, Denison and Yow’s push and pull creates that notorious, explosive tension that has mesmerised so many over the years. So good, it’s a track that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Head or Goat. However, it’s topped by Sims and McNeilly who not only bring The Jesus Lizard into this new era, but also maintain their relevance, confirming this comeback isn’t frozen in time like, say, Oasis…

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They do this through speed. On Falling Down and Moto(R), the rhythm section is as tight as it’s ever been with the pair conjuring up the kind of break-neck force that dominated Pissed Jeans’ latest LP, Half Divorced (fitting, considering how influential the former has been for the latter).

Then there’s Dunning Kruger and Is that Your Hand? which are a mixture of the old and new. On Is that Your Hand?, Denison’s guitars glint like a flashing blade through the night, as Yow’s clever wordplay provokes thought as his story takes several sharp turns (“My teeth came to pieces / When I spoke to Jesus / I know what peace is / We don’t have that crap at home”).

And while this moment moves away from all the murder and mystique that dominates Rack, it’s actually on Grind where The Jesus Lizard deliver their most potent missive, giving us a clue as to why they’ve waited so long to release new music.

“I think food for thought ought to be force-fed in school / It’s sad these recently deleted dreams cannot come true / Keep pussing out ’cause that’s what you love to do/Collect conflicting view points for your stupid point of view,” sings Yow. A snapshot of their dormant years watching the decay of the human experience from afar. The phenomena that is Twitter. The narcissism that fuels platforms like Instagram and TikTok. All these things weren’t even a thought when The Jesus Lizard were writing their own history. But ironically on Grind, they use it as new fuel to burn.

It’s one of the many highlights that sees the band return bolder and as carefree as ever, and in an era that may be alien to some, Rack feels timeless in its own way. Not sonically, but in attitude, because it’s The Jesus Lizard being The Jesus Lizard. And it’s not until you spend some quality time with Rack until you realise just how much they’ve been missed.

Rack is out via Ipecac Recordings. Purchase from Bandcamp.