Salt Lick

Seattle quartet Tad’s follow-up to 1989’s God’s Balls was an even noisier, heavier EP recorded in Chicago with Steve Albini. Frontman Tad Doyle’s and Gary Thorstensen’s guitars sounded like the air intakes on two NHRA dragsters; Kurt Danielson’s bass was a little deeper in the mix than before (though prominent on “Wood Goblins”), but its postpunk-metal roar still gave the music guts and grime; and Steve Wied’s drums sounded like someone whacking you in the head with a pair of ping-pong paddles. These songs are rawer than the band’s initial blast of material, while remaining just as well-thought-out as before. Heavy as their music was, Doyle and his bandmates wrote songs, not just riffs.