Black Leather Jesus — Naked Came The Stranger

Naked Came The Stranger is the latest slice of dense ‘n’ searing sonic smut from long-runing US noise collective Black Leather Jesus. The release appears as either a c32 tape( via here) or digital download on Monroeville, Pennsylvania Pettie Soles- with the release serving up two side long examples of wonderful harsh noise torture.

The tape version had a pressing of fifty copies, and there are some still available. I’m reviewing a digital promo, but as far as I can gather the tape comes in a monochrome cover featuring on its front an undone zipper, behind it is a mans covered in something(!). You can only purchase the tape if you're over 18 years or older- so I’m guessing there is some homosexual S&M/ BDSM imagery inside, which is fairly usual for BLJ releases.

So first up we have “Rough ‘n’ Ready”, and here we find a central mixture of pummelling churn 'n' forking grate. This is fed into and added to by this railing ‘n’ ringing element, which hints at a musty sort of harmonic unease, with the whole thing been underfed by crude buffeting low-end purr.  Towards the last quarter of the track, we get some less controlled elements of junk clutter and bay occurring, and these nicely push the intensity up. We also get some nice more ragged low-end crust skittering within the wilder forking textures too. The whole track has a nice balance of brutal overwhelment, and grimy atmospheric unease- really everything you need from a great BLJ track.

The other track here is “Early Morning Hard-on’s” and here we find rugged ‘n’ ragging crusty lows, going against skittering mids, and rattling ‘n’ sparkling highs. This track feels a lot more urgent, yet muddily churning in its an attack- and a particular like the way the low-end almost brutally bounces ‘n’ bucks, which of course nicely ties into the tracks title. On this sides track, we have less of the uneasily sleazed atmospheric undercurrents, but this is replaced by roughshod and perverse abandonment- which again fits the tracks title.

Black Leather Jesus are now over thirty years into their career of creating raging sonic depravity- but they are still managing to make impactful and effective noise craft, that still retains its original key sonic elements and themes,  but adds in subtle new twist ‘n’ turns to their formal. I very much enjoyed Naked Came The Stranger, and it’s certainly on par with the collectives normally high but nasty standards.