Three 65, Day 30
The Jesus Lizard, Liar

The Jesus Lizard were a band of dichotomies. Vocalist David Yow liked to say they were "three-fourths of a great band," but what made the band so great was the clash between its frontman and its back end. Specifically, the band was incredibly tight in its post-punk assault, the songs led by David Wm Sims' bass and Mac McNeilly's drumming with accent guitar provided by Duane Denison. And the singer was a sloppy drunk who often vomited on-stage. This isn't to diminish Yow's presence at all - just to underscore it. Oftentimes he sounded like a man in the throes of an exorcism.

Liar is The Jesus Lizard's best album, it's almost universally agreed (although Goat is just as good, if not slightly better). This is where the music and vocals really come together in a total onslaught to the senses, especially on opener "Boilermaker," which bursts out of the gate drunk as hell and ready to fight. "Gladiator" and "The Art Of Self-Defense" are bizarre snapshots of weirdo lifestyles, and "Puss," which is ostensibly about beating up a woman (there are no lyrics included for this song in the liner notes, curiously enough), rides a bluesy guitar lick to Hell and back.

On the second half, the band gets even weirder, with the masturbatory serenade of "Whirl," the auto-erotic mayhem of "Rope" (dig that country slide guitar), and the preacher-filled madness of "Zachariah." Coming off as totally unhinged, the band would never capture this level of psychosis in their music again.