Jane's Addiction, The Pyramid Club, Hollywood 11/13/86

Here's one local band, which could unite a number of this town's disparate youth tribes. The name implies wan-skinned, arrhythmic noise but the music is really a muscular, combustible mixture of headslamming heavy metal guitar, roaring funk rhythms, and dreamy psychedelia-all topped off with Perry Farrell's Robert Plant-style, banshee in a gale storm wail.
At their best, Jane's Addiction bring to mind some noisy union of Led Zeppelin, Killing Joke, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Bassist Eric Avery and drummer Steve Perkins provide a thundering bottom for Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro's psycho-metal excursions. The problem is that when Jane's Addiction stop their full court press and decide to indulge in a whiter shade of pale, the band loses its focus and lapses into the self-indulgent. The first three songs in their set, "Slow Divers," "My Time," and "Jane Says" are a case in point. While their moody edginess lent some drama, they dragged on far too long.
It wasn't until mid-set, with "I Love The Whores," that Jane's Addiction locked into a steamroller metal/funk groove. Granted, they don't write songs as such-with all the choruses, verses, harmonies, and melodies that label implies-but their earth trembling fusion can be so intoxicating, as on "Mountain Song" and the closing "Ocean Size," that it's hard not to be impressed.
--Cary Darling
BAM, 12/10/86


[thanks to sonny for sending this in]

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