SORE THROAT — Unhindered by Talent (review)

SORE THROAT — Unhindered by Talent album cover

Album · 1988 · Grindcore

5/5 · 2018-04-07
Vim Fuego

On a first listen to this album, many people would think “Unhindered By Talent” is a highly accurate album title. After all, Sore Throat was hardly known as the most technically accomplished band ever. Noisy, rough, and ready, this early grind album must have seemed like musical Armageddon when it was first released in 1988. The 50 + songs on this album average somewhere around the 40 second mark. It would have held very limited appeal, and would probably have been laughed at, ridiculed, and ignored by the mainstream upon release.

“Unhindered By Talent” though, is the perfect title for this album. Too much musical talent can be a hindrance to creativity. How, you might ask? Because if you know what music is supposed to sound like, it will sound just like music which has already been created. However, if you don’t know how to make music (as in, lacking talent), you’re more likely to come up with something creative, new, and unheard before. That is what happened on this album.

Founding member and vocalist Richard "Militia" Walker was also in Wartorn and Warfear, while bass player John "Doom" Pickering and guitarist Brian "Bri" Talbot had been involved with seminal hardcore band Doom, so the band was not short of experience, but talent? That's a far more subjective proposition.

Like early Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, Sore Throat’s recipe for anti-music was to turn everything up to the red line, get a target in your sights, and just fucking nail it. Some of those targets were political. “Hang Norman Tebbit”, “Fuck the Poll Tax”, “Two Horrendous Nuclear Arsenals”, and “Our Leaders Horrendous Policies” don’t take much explaining. Nor do social observations, like “Horrendous Cut-Throat System”, “Eat Organic”, “War is Horrendous”, “Consumer Terrorisim” and “Yankees Go Home”.

Sore Throat also had strong opinions on what was and what wasn’t right in the hardcore/grindcore/underground scene, as far as commercialism and selling out, and they didn’t care who they offended. Some of their targets included “Invasion Of The Amerikaan HC Clones”, “Billy Milanos Head”, “The Crossover (Is Over)”, “(D.R.I.) Dead Rich Individuals”, “(M.D.C.) More Damn Capitalists”, “Burn The Goths”, and “Record Collectors Are Still Pretentious Assholes”.

And just when it all seems like a hard grind, along comes “The Molecatcher”. If ever there was a song on this album entirely lacking in talent, it’s this one. It is a traditional bawdy ballad, rife with innuendo. Someone doesn’t know how to play the accordion, someone doesn’t know how to sing, and no one really knows the tune. It’s a car crash of a song, but like driving past a crash scene, rubbernecking is compulsive. It’s really quite compelling, and just like someone says at the end, it’s fucking horrible.

The rest of the album basically vacillates between blasting grind and grinding sludge, if that makes sense. There’s the odd strange interlude though. “In Their Hypocrisy, They’ll Probably Sue Us” is a spoken word rant at the state of the record industry. “A Bow To Capital” is a Billy Bragg-esque protest song with incredibly earnest anti-capitalist lyrics, and guest vocals by Peter Pax. “Iron Lung” is a Black Sabbath pisstake, featuring Peaceville Records founder Hammy on vocals.

This is one of those Marmite albums. For those who don’t know what Marmite is, it is a yeast extract spread, of British origin, but named after a French cooking pot. There are different versions made in South Africa and New Zealand, the less than original Vegemite from Australia, and the completely weird Cenovis from Switzerland. Anyway, all share the common quality in that they look like a mixture of sump oil and shit, and people either adore or loathe the taste. You are either going to loathe or adore “Unhindered By Talent”. There is no middle ground.