4 out of 5

Label: Gasoline Boost / Skin Graft

Produced by: Inibla Nevets (a name which the liner notes helpfully translates as Polish for “slimy hole” and looks like an anagram for Steve Albini)

Progress.  After the blitzkrieg of ‘Cutthroat,’ big’n – now funneled through the production ear and presumably influence of Mr. Albini – highlight and evolve the best elements from that album on ‘Discipline Through Sound,’ which maintains Brian Wnukowski’s and Mike Chartrand’s thumping bass and drums, Akins harsh guttural vocals, and Todd Johnson’s ripping guitars but learns the push and pull of post-rock a la Shellac, resulting in a much more powerful album than the previous one.  The slowed down pace helps to bring more weight to Akins’ words and the intensity of their delivery, which, assisted by a lyric book, prove to be an appropriately bleak outline of life and love.  However, his snarl feels somewhat forced when the heft is peeled back during some good build-ups, like on ‘Dying Breed’ or closer ‘White Russian’; the former, featuring the singer talk-singing in moments (with some awesome layered background shouts from either Akins or his band-mates) proves a more effective match for that style, and its a hindrance that he was seemingly hitched to his angry voice to not shake it up more often.  The album also again features those odd interludes, which sound like snippets from other songs on the album, and I still cannot attest to their need, especially now that each song feels complete from start to finish and the intros / codas are not needed.  It makes more sense with the brief instrumental that opens the disc, which – patient and pretty – pretty much announces right off the bat how much big’n has evolved from there to here.  But otherwise those snippets are questionable.  Thankfully they don’t throw off the album’s flow.

We’re also in the era of the hidden track, but ‘Discipline’ does it right: ‘White Russian’ segues into a ten minute amusing phone call between drummer Brian and ‘Rene’ (not sure on his role) on top of a minimalist strumming of strings or drum beat before that beat picks back up and they go into some secret song.  There’s no reason to make us wait / fast forward / pick up the needle to get through silence for a hidden track; ‘Discipline’ actually makes it worth your while to listen to the whole stretch.  And the production is sick.  I’m not an Albini purist – some groups benefit from his style, some don’t.  But if you can bring it live, often Steve knows how to enhance that, and that’s the sense you get here.  Everything feels rich and raw, which is exactly the kind of sound big’n needs.

This release is on the latter end of the grand post-rock 90s before it would get muddled with a different type of indie vibe in the 00s.  Big’n isn’t often mentioned in the same breath as a lot of luminaries from the era, and Akins vocals are not listener-friendly by any means.  But ‘Discipline’ is a truly solid disc and sounds like a band fully in charge of its sound.  So if your shelf has a lot of those luminaries but lacks this album, perhaps make some space and give it a spin.