$14.00
(LAST REMANING COPIES FROM DULL KNIFE - YOU NEED THIS)
That Houstonian Don Walsh’s anti-everybody noise-sludge-metal-skree endeavor has remained “active” (or whatever you want to call periodic adult-temper-tantrums of both calculated and, I’m guessing, involuntarily-mental sound/voice depravity issued from various stages of small size and usual location within Texas state boundaries) since 1986 is not some “th’ fuck?!?” miracle once one cozies up to the easy reality that a musical entity like Rusted Shut will never put the brakes on the favored non-schedule in question so long as its principle character can breathe, make noises with his mouth, and wear a guitar necklace. Anyway, this is the first time on vinyl for Rusted Shut’s proper debut album, Rehab (though some designate it as a “sophomore album”… most likely in error), appearing some ten years after the esteemed-but-sadly-defunct Emperor Jones label took the gutsy plunge by introducing this shit-crusted, stumbling, no-fidelity riff catastrophe to world via CD in 2004. The Rusted Shut discography up to that point was but one line item; a self-titled 1996 CD-only cobble-up consisting of a radio broadcast, a live show, and a couple of studio tracks. Therefore, in this band’s world, Rehab’s original release might as well have lit a fuse under some 18-years-dormant desire to assume a more prolific place in the sociopath noise/water-brain metal underground. Compared to a barely-distro’d mid-90’s CD of bridge-burning exercises set to tape, the band’s post-2004 activity is positively Wolf Eyes-ish in the Rusted Shut world. There was a second real full-length Dead (yes, it’s supposed to have a strike through it, because Rusted Shut will put a FUCKING STRIKE THROUGH ALL YOU FUCKING UNDERWEAR SKIDMARKS IF YOU … WELL … IF YOU MAKE IT ‘TIL THE END OF THE SET, BUNCHA AIR-WASTERS!!!) shoved into the cultural conversation in 2009 by Load Records, and that same year a six-track self-released LP titled Early Years showed up (somewhere). Of the shorter/smaller formats, four outtakes from the 1998 Rehab sessions (1998?!?) were assembled for the Hot Sex 12” E.P. in 2008 (also on Dull Knife), and this was preceded by a one-sided, one-song 7” lathe-cut (“Bring Out Your Dead”) in 2006. And laying out the red carpet for Rehab’s graduation to vinyl, there was the 2012 self-released cassette-only album of who-knows-what-but-who-cares-when-the-title-is … Disaster Bitch. It should be known that this LP contains only the first 8 of the 13 tracks from the CD version, making this incarnation of Rehab true to the original CD-R that circulated for a bit prior to the Emperor Jones treatment that tacked on some extra (and somewhat different) material. Side two of Rehab is where Rusted Shut becomes the legend in its own little lunchtime as “Dead In The Water” and “Death Spear” are stretched out to a maximum all-points threshold (noise, pain, torture, and the repetition thereof). Despite its record-setting tardiness, even if we’re talkin’ the CD release in 2004 (tho we’re not), Reha does effectively out-Drunks With Guns, out-Strangulated Beatoffs, out-Upsidedown Cross, out-Brainbombs, out-Twin Stumps, out-Sockeye & friends (only sonically, that shit is much funnier than Rusted Shut), out-Kudgel … all those bands. Here’s to a future that will most assuredly feature Rusted Shut in some capacity; hopefully coming to an unofficial daytime SXSW 2015 party lineup in less than a year, not that I’ll be there to witness unexpectedly-bummed-the-fuck-out Cloud Nothings fans hurriedly shuffling in the opposite direction. Yeah, so what if it’s out of print. Labels shouldn’t do reissues in editions of 300. - Andrew Earles, Still Single, 2014