Qui

David Yow sings like someone at the end of a very long, lost weekend. He’s not the face-on-the-bar, belligerent drunk, nor is he the overly affectionate drunk. He’s the muttering, recently institutionalized drunk, who threatens invisible apparitions with his cocktail straw.

Joining Qui just last year, the former Scratch Acid and Jesus Lizard frontman spreads glorious fudge all over the noise-rock banana split of drummer Paul Christensen and guitarist Matt Cronk (who started the band as a duo in 2000).

Few singers can match Yow’s intensity and twisted charisma — especially live, where he behaves like Iggy’s retarded cousin. On “Apartment,” a track from the recently released Love’s Miracle CD, Yow sounds like J. Robbins surreptitiously “boxing the clown” over a tumultuous rumble. But the disc’s highlight is “Freeze.” Over a Primus-inflected cacophony, Yow mumbles, “Why would anyone live here?,” “You can suck my wang,” and “So goddamn handsome.” Noise hasn’t been this joyously irreverent since the Butthole Surfers’ “Lady Sniff.”

This article appears in Sep 26 – Oct 2, 2007.