In the 1980s, when New York's art-noise scene was at its apex, British imprint Blast First willingly signed its innovators. In a quick swoop, the label became the home of Sonic Youth, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr. and Band of Susans. The group was the latest in New York's lineage of bands melding rock with the avant-garde — a pedigree that began in the late 1960s with The Velvet Underground.
Formed by avant-garde flautist Susan Stenger and guitarist Robert Poss, Band of Susans was a rock band without the rock clichés: no guitar histrionics.no vocals at the front of the mix. Each instrument was given its own part, and they fitted together like building blocks to create droning, dense textures.
The band's name came from the trio of Susans in the group's original line-up: Stenger on bass and Susans Tallman and Lyall on guitars. With Poss serving as the third guitarist and Ron Spitzer on drums, the quintet released the Blessing And Curse EP in 1987. The poppy single "Hope Against Hope" was chosen by Melody Maker as Single of the Week.
Waves of distortion blew across the Susans' 1988 debut LP, Hope Against Hope. Unusual tunings, and staccato drums and melody lines that proceeded vertically rather than horizontally, made the listener feel caught in an electrical storm. Tallman and Lyall departed prior to 1989's Love Agenda; the vacancies were filled by Karen Haglof, who had played in Rhys Chatham's guitar ensembles with Poss and Stenger, and Page Hamilton, who later formed Helmet. The new line-up's songs were grinding and angular, as melody lines stopped, started and shifted to expose underlying layers. The blues — as well as The Rolling Stones' version of them — threaded through the music. The Stones' influence eventually culminated in the 1992 Susans' EP Now, which featured instrumental and vocal versions of "Paint It Black".
By the time the Susans' 1991 tribute to the E chord — entitled The Word And The Flesh — was released, guitarists Mark Lonergan and Anne Husick had replaced Haglof and Hamilton. The subsequent LP, Veil (1993), supplanted R&B rhythms with crunched sonic shards. 1995's Here Comes Success — a title meant as both a sarcastic barb and a nod to Iggy Pop — used rock beats to aerate melodic, prolonged compositions. Also released in 1995 was the greatest hits compilation Wired For Sound, which devoted one disc to songs with vocals and another to instrumentals, an often overlooked component of the Susans' work.
— Julie Taraska, The Rough Guide To Rock
At their utmost Band of Susans make one of the most spiritual and uplifting rock sounds around. "Hope Against Hope" remains the blueprint for their best 'songs'. Live, in a downtown New York club, it's even more ultimate than on vinyl. Three guitars cross-hatch incredible simple chords and sub-riffs over the same, narrow soundspace, creating an inchoate blaze of light, like a child scrawling manically over and over a piece of paper with fluorescent crayons. Band of Susans work furiously all for that moment of flashover when the song's superstructure is engulfed, lost in a borderless miasma of interference, a pall of cosmic tinnitus Instead of 'communication', Band of Susans offer something more like communion. — Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker
Adamantly arty, these New York subversives have since 1986 never lost faith in hypnotic guitarRobert Poss and Susan Stenger prevail with dronefests rich in texture and heavy with stream-of-consciousness musingsThe radical strategy pays off in music that is brainy, visceral and bracing.— Rolling Stone
Unsung heroes in pop's gender wars, The Band Of Susans have surpassed the challenges put down by successive Downtown minimalists: the No New York groups, composers Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca. The result: the best guitar rock of the 80s.— Mojo
Their songs are like excerpts from dirty realist fiction -- they look at the everyday hopelessness of lives that have gone wrong, that have suffered from the remorseless optimism the American Dream extracts, until they can't face reality anymore.— N.M.E.
Band Of Susans, a co-ed New York City quintet, have put more electric guitar on one record than any other I've ever heard. Pop this beast into your car's system and blow your hardtop straight into the 1990's. — Spin
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