Blood Red River

The Scientists sometimes cop responsibility for ‘inventing grunge’. It’s a neat tagline but it feels too reductive, as though a group as multi-faceted and ornery as The Scientists could ever be corralled into a tidy rock-historical lineage. On Blood Red River 1982-1984, which pulls together most of the material they released during those two years, the group’s music is deeper than the night, murky and guttural, danker than the swamp, a bruised, elemental take on the blues. The rhythms are staggered and crushing, the guitars sound like they’re strung with poison ivy, and lead singer Kim Salmon has lost the teenage angst he sang with in the group’s first line-up – now, he’s slurred and elliptical. There’s a cover of Captain Beefheart’s “Clear Spot” here – that makes perfect sense.