page_title: The Word and the Flesh
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: The Word and the Flesh / Music
caption_attribution_description: English: E major chord for guitar in open position. Beginners chord.
context_page_description: The Word and the Flesh is the third studio album and fourth album overall by American noise rock band Band of Susans. For the first time in the band's history, they were able to find a settled lineup to back up the band's core-line up of band leader Robert Poss, Susan Stenger and drummer Ron Spitzer, after Karen Higlof and Page Hamilton departed the band following the release of Love Agenda. With Anne Husick and Mark Lonergan replacing them, the band entered their "classic line-up" and recording The Word and the Flesh in New York City in spring 1990, with Poss acting as producer.
  The album was the band's "tribute to the E chord", and is often considered to the band's most accessible album, with a less reverbed guitar sound and more song-orientated approach than before. The final track, "Guitar Trio" is a work from when Poss and Stenger worked with experimental composer Rhys Chatham in the 1980s. The Word and the Flesh was belatedly released in September 1991 by Restless Records. It originally received mostly positive reviews from music critics from a variety of magazines.
context_section_description: The band considered The Word and the Flesh to be their "tribute to the E chord," and is considered by several critics to be the band's most accessible album, opting for a less reverbed guitar sound than before. Chris Parker of Allmusic said that "despite featuring their third pair of guitarists in as many albums, [The Word and the Flesh sees] Band of Susans deliver their most assured, accessible album." Michael Peitti of Tucson Weekly said that the album was "gorgeous, buzzing [and] the most accessible" by the band. Music journalist Andrew Earles called it the band's "strongest rock-centric, song-concerned album, and their first with genuine hooks/catchiness rather than just melodies." Punk Auction said the album "employed a more focused attack, typified by a lesser emphasis on reverb and feedback, to arrive at a more accessible sound." Trouser Press said the album features "even fine-tunes [and] the Susans' dedication to both content and presentation" and noted how "the resolute maelstrom of guitar pressure, which — as distinct from the Jesus and Mary Chain's fuzz — is kept on a strict low-reverb diet and carefully assembled into a roar of distinct instruments rather than one hazy propwash."
  Parker commented that "the guitars operate as interlocking pieces of a larger puzzle, while bassist Susan Stenger floats below, providing structure without being chained to the beat. The sound alternates between haunting and crushing, and the guitars are finally consistently corralled into the dramatic service of the song. The clean, nearly reverb-less guitar sound leaves plenty of room to hear the guitars' idiosyncratic directions while maintaining a nearly opaque wall of sound." He described "Plot Twist" and "Silver Lining" as examples of songs when "the band breaks loose from their throbbing chords to deliver a crunchy punch to the solar plexus," but noted that, "mostly, though, the effect is of rich lattices of guitar and intermingling swells, lifting and propelling the songs through an omnipresent guitar drone. Bassist Stenger's throaty vocals add a moody counterpoint to the guitars' pitched screech and anchor the album's opening two tracks, not incidentally two of the better compositions on the disc." He later referred to the album is being based around songcraft.
  "Tilt", described by Onda Rock as "a truly shocking piece for the volume and dynamic outcomes to which it arrives," was initially included in Poss' demo tape of four tracks, where he added "the song of Susan Stenger (who also adapted the text of my fist)." He recalled that he had recorded the intro feedback guitar inside the loft of Nicolas Collins, and used two electric basses and distorted drum machine rather crude. It became one of his favorite tracks. The album closes with the thirteen minute "Guitar Trio", a cover version of the "hypnotic, slow-building fugue" of the same name by experimental American guitarist and experimental composer Rhys Chatham, which, as the name suggests, was composed for three electric guitars, and suited the band as they had a trio of guitarists. Poss considered Chatham a former mentor, as numerous members of the band began their careers in Chatham's ensembles. According to one commentary, "this parallels the way that members of fellow NYC noise rockers Sonic Youth began their careers in Branca's ensembles; Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth did play with Chatham as well."
  Despite how critics have characterized the album, Poss has retrospectively stated that the album was very much a sonic project instead of a melodic one, and in an interview with Onda Rock, Poss said "the melody I've never been entirely concerned. I'm pretty obsessed with texture and architecture of sound. By repetition, the level, space, distortion density. I love the interactions between seals and lines that generate ghost motifs, melodies and subliminal sounds. I like mysterious reasons, buried, the sounds that are fighting against each other to be heard in opposition to the standardization of "battery-hand-and everything else subordinate to this" that characterizes a la
caption: The band considered the album to a tribute to the E guitar chord.
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