Review Summary: One of the few noise albums I can tolerate.
Controlled Bleeding were one of the many noise bands to follow the first wave of industrial around the early 80s. Along with groups like Whitehouse and the stable of bands on Gary Mundy's underground DIY label Broken Flag, Controlled Bleeding played a style of harsh, grating, pummeling noise made primarily with vocals, waves of distortion and feedback, found sounds and electronic devices. Despite being part of an almost annoyingly abrasive movement, Controlled Bleeding were one of the few bands to break the mold and incorporate thought out compositions, textures and employ bleak and horrendous atmospheres without falling completely into the racket of purely improvisational riff raff like many of their contemporaries. "Knees and Bones" was their magnum opus in the noise genre which set them apart from the countless bands spewing out hours of tape releases with no realization or effort. It's difficult to find something halfway decent in such a juvenile and novelty genre, so discovering this album was a small reward in the mostly fruitless exploration of 80s harsh noise.
The album is split into two roughly 24 minute pieces, accordingly titled "Knees" and "Bones". The production is very filthy and harsh with a grating analog tone. Low rumbling sounds churn along with feedback squealing out. The vocals (performed by Paul Lemos) pop in here in there with spoken bits and yells drenched in distortion and feedback. All in all it appears as a typical early noise record, although elements of the sound have a little more texture and don't always punish the ears. The sounds used here aren't completely based on screeching vocals and feedback. They incorporate some truly "industrial" elements by using a cement mixer and electric drills, although they're basically incomprehensible behind the wall of distortion. As the first assault of noise draws to a halt some metallic percussion enters the picture. Rather than incoherent smashing they actually form some beats, albeit simplistic and tribal ones, and movie the album into a new area as ominous sounds creep out. Most odd of all in this section is what appear to be almost operatic vocals around nine and half minutes in, most likely done by Paul Lemos himself. This more minimal and percussive section churns on with harsh crunching noisy sounds working into a beat with an overall very dark and eerie tone. There's also a minimal section of what sounds like notes on a guitar plunking a very dead and weird rhythm over noise and little percussive bits. Most of the "Bones" section is pure noise with harsh churning sounds, squeaks and squeals and frantic spasming nonsense accompanied by Paul Lemos' bellowing yells, grunts and high pitched screams, sometimes sounding completely mechanized. His yells work lower in the mix and sometimes create a chant-like sound which is somewhat distinctive and interesting compared to the usual overly harsh, annoying and often not at all vocal-like vocals seen in early noise groups. It's also a big step above the audible but incredibly stupid vocals and lyrics of Whitehouse. The album ends with some hypnotic swirling distortion and feedback with angry yells seemingly vibrating within them.
The noise genre, especially 80s harsh noise, and most especially bands associated with Broken Flag records have fascinated me for some time, but each endeavor I've taken to investigate these bands has come up almost completely fruitless. My relationship with the genre as being fascinated with it but frequently annoyed by it became so frustrating I nearly sloughed off the whole thing, but I would still occasionally download an album if the cover art grabbed me the right way. In the case of Controlled Bleeding's "Knees and Bones" this method worked out well. While it's not masterpiece and certainly not a favourite album of mine, it's about as good as I've seen harsh noise get, and utilizes some interesting composition here and there to keep my attention and create a suitably dehumanizing and harsh industrial atmosphere. Noise is about the easiest type of music to make, with countless dingbats nowadays achieving cult status by screaming into a mic without a shirt on while piercing feedback renders the audience deaf. Controlled Bleeding may have been no better than their dumb ass contemporaries making extreme nonsense just for the sake of being abrasive, but they did a fine job with "Knees and Bones".
