Improvised Munitions & Demo
Lamb Unlimited, 2021

Pretty safe to say that this blog wouldn’t exist if the Unsane track “This Town” from 1989’s Crunchouse compilation hadn’t caught my ear with a bludgeoning riff that simply would not recede from the squishy gray matter in my noggin and become a woven strand in the DNA of my musical tastes. Fast forward to 2021 and this treasure once lost to the drug-riddled underworld of NYC scum rock, a test pressing of what was supposed to be their first album on the defunct Circuit Records label, has been recovered and reissued, packaged up with the band’s 4-track demo and released on the band’s Lamb Unlimited label. As much as I love every Unsane record, and even Unsane-adjacent groups like Cutthroats 9, UXO, and Human Impact, the early Unsane singles and first LP have always hit the hardest with a dense, grimy grit to Chris Spencer’s tortured Telecaster, Pete Shore’s maxed-out bass rumble, and Charlie Ondras’ rolling drum barrage — all elements that are present on this monster release.

Four of the tracks from the doomed Improvised Munitions LP will be familiar to those who’ve heard the self-titled Unsane debut LP that came out on Matador records in 1991, as well as three tracks that were eventually released on some of the band’s early singles. These recordings sound extra dense and layered and have given the those tracks new life to my tinnitus-wrecked ears, while the four demo tracks are manna from the noise rock gods: unheard, solidly destructive tracks from the band’s earliest incarnation. If you can’t get enough of the gnarly minor-key riffage you’ve come to know and love from this group over the last 30+ years, then you are going to want to need to put this beast at the top of your want list.