Locust Abortion Technician is the third studio album by American rock band Butthole Surfers, released in March 1987. The album was originally released on both vinyl and CD on Touch and Go, and was remastered on CD on the band's label, Latino Buggerveil, in 1999.

Background

Locust Abortion Technician was the first Butthole Surfers album to not be recorded in a professional studio. After growing tired of living on the road, the band relocated to Winterville sometime in 1986, where they rented a small two-bedroom house, and used their meager savings to purchase an old Ampex 8-track tape machine and two microphones. Having set up a temporary home studio, the band set off to record what would become their third full-length LP. Despite the band downgrading from the equipment used on their previous record, guitarist Paul Leary believes that the inferior equipment forced the band to be more creative than they might otherwise have been. This fusion led the band to be associated with the emerging grunge and sludge metal sounds. The song "Sweat Loaf" utilizes a warped riff parodying the verse riff from the Black Sabbath song "Sweet Leaf". The song "22 Going On 23" is an early example of a song dealing directly with a woman's coping, or lack thereof, with sexual assault.

This album marked the debut of bass player Jeff Pinkus, as well as the return of co-drummer Teresa Nervosa, who had left the band in December 1985. It was also the first Surfers full-length album to feature lead singer Gibby Haynes' Gibbytronix vocal effects, which feature on the songs "Sweat Loaf" and "Human Cannonball" (although Gibbytronix were employed on "Comb" on the Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis EP a year earlier).

The Butthole Surfers regularly play songs from Locust Abortion Technician during their live concerts, including "Sweat Loaf", "Graveyard", "Pittsburgh to Lebanon", "U.S.S.A.", "Kuntz", and "22 Going on 23".

Notes

  • "Sweat Loaf" is a take on the Black Sabbath song, "Sweet Leaf".
  • "HAY" is a different mix of the "22 Going on 23" recording, played backwards at double speed. What sounds like voices saying "Hey!" in the song are, in fact, field recordings the band made of cows mooing outside a nearby slaughterhouse, also backwards at double speed. In the final part, there is something that seems to be a high-pitched voice speaking gibberish. This is the speech from the beginning of "22 Going on 23," including the repeated words.
  • "22 Going on 23" brought the band to wider UK attention when it was voted number 44 in John Peel's 1987 Festive Fifty.
  • "The O-Men" is a spoof on the speed metal band Omen, inspired by and lifting its chorus from their song "Termination".

Reception and legacy

The album received critical acclaim upon initial release, appearing in the year-end lists of noteworthy publications such as Melody Maker, NME and OOR. It would go on to feature in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and Terrorizer magazine's "The 100 Most Important Albums of the 80s", while Alternative Press ranked it at #28 on their list of the "Top 99 Albums of '85 to '95".

In his retrospective review of the album, Steve Huey, writing for AllMusic, said, “The aural equivalent of a nightmarish acid trip and arguably the band's best album (or worst, depending on your point of view), Locust Abortion Technician tops the psychedelic, artsy sonic experimentation of Rembrandt Pussyhorse while keeping one foot planted firmly in the gutter. The record veers from heavy Sabbath sludge (even parodying that band on "Sweat Loaf") to grungy noise rock to progressive guitar and tape effects to almost folky numbers in one big, gloriously schizophrenic mess.”

Kurt Cobain listed the album in his top 50 albums of all time along with the Butthole Surfers’ first record. Doug Martsch included the album among the 10 records that shaped the music of his band Built to Spill.

Samples, covers and tributes

  • "Sweat Loaf" is referenced in Red Hot Chili Peppers' song "Deep Kick" from their album One Hot Minute.
  • The opening of "Sweat Loaf" was sampled by Orbital on their track "Satan".
  • "Sweat Loaf" was sampled by Kid Rock on his track "Pancake Breakfast" from the album The Polyfuze Method.
  • Melvins covered the track "Graveyard" on their 2018 album Pinkus Abortion Technician, whose title is itself a reference to both this album and bassist Jeff Pinkus (who plays on both).
  • The song "Human Cannonball" was sampled in the final season of the television show Stranger Things. The character Mike Wheeler (played by Finn Wolfhard) tries to make a bomb out of a record, choosing this album before being convinced by Robin (played by Maya Hawke) to swap for an unnamed Replacements record.

Track listing

All songs written and produced by Butthole Surfers, except where noted.

Side A

Side B

Personnel

  • Gibby Haynes – lead vocals
  • Paul Leary – guitar
  • Jeff Pinkus – bass
  • King Coffey – drums
  • Teresa Nervosa – drums

Charts

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-

! scope="col" | Chart (1987)

! scope="col" | Peak<br />position

|-

| UK Indie Chart

| style="text-align:center;"|3

|}

References

<!-- This is a licensed stream for the album, which is allowed under Wikipedia polices -->

  • Locust Abortion Technician (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)