Noise Rock Guide: History and Characteristics of Noise Rock

Noise rock is an umbrella term given to rock music produced by a diverse array of bands that draws on different genres—experimental and avant-garde compositions, punk rock, and industrial music—to create a sound driven by distortion, extreme volume, and atonality. Noise rock bands may follow a mix of traditionally structured rock and roll with experimental elements, such as the music of Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr., or abandon Western musical concepts altogether and craft abrasive but expansive soundscapes from guitar feedback, electronic instruments, and percussion. Bands like Japan’s Melt-Banana, the Rhode Island-based Lightning Bolt, and Oxbow from San Francisco fall into this latter category.

Noise rock is occasionally considered a subgenre of both punk rock and post-rock: Some noise-rockers adhere to the aggressive aspect of the former and the minimalist instrumental qualities of the latter. Many post-punk and post-hardcore music scenes, like the deliberately confrontational sound of noisecore and the complex prog-meets-metal arrangements of mathcore, seem to share links to noise rock, especially the “dirty” psychedelic assault of Austin, Texas’s Butthole Surfers, and the alien New Wave vibe of The Locust. However, many noise rock bands and noise rock albums follow their own instincts and influences to produce eclectic music that defies strict categorization.

Noise rock dates back to the late ’60s with the boundary-pushing style of the Velvet Underground. Here is a brief historical overview of noise rock:

• Beginnings of noise rock. The history of noise rock is often cited as beginning with the Velvet Underground, the legendary New York City rock band fronted by guitarist/vocalist Lou Reed, in the late 1960s. The band’s 1968 album, White Light/White Heat, featured extensive use of raw feedback and long, improvisational tracks like “Sister Ray,” both of which would serve as foundational elements in noise rock. A decade later, the No Wave and punk scenes of the late 1970s and avant-garde composers like guitarist Glenn Branca would write and record adventurous music that weighed heavily in the formation of noise rock.
• The rise of noise rock. The 1980s saw the rise of many significant noise rock bands, from Sonic Youth and Chicago’s Big Black. During this period, noise rock would splinter into many different forms, from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore creating sheets of droning electric guitar to the ferocious, menacing sound of Big Black and The Jesus Lizard. The punk band Flipper moved away from hardcore and into slower, heavier sounds during this period, while Swans adapted the grind of industrial music into their ominous sound. Many groups, like the Butthole Surfers and Unsane, simply embraced an unfettered, seemingly chaotic din, a pursuit taken to its furthest extremes by Japanese bands like the Boredoms.
• Noise rock becomes mainstream. Noise rock flirted with the mainstream during the 1990s, when bands like Nirvana—whose album In Utero was produced by Big Black’s Steve Albini—embraced noise rock sounds, and longtime practitioners like Sonic Youth enjoyed major-label success. Extreme noise rock from Melt-Banana also entered indie rock circles, while metalcore-influenced noise rock from Dillinger Escape Plan and others rose to prominence at the tail end of the decade.
• Noise rock in the new millennium. The 2000s saw noise rock expand even more to include the long-running Cherubs from Texas and avant-garde-inspired acts from the Northeast like the precise but punishing Lightning Bolt. Thurston Moore returned from Sonic Youth’s breakup during this period to lead Chelsea Light Moving, while METZ, Thee Oh Sees, and Deerhoof offered their own intense, rhythm-driven variations on noise rock.

Several significant characteristics reoccur in many noise rock bands, including:

1. 1. Atonality. While some noise rock bands follow traditional, blues-based rock music elements, many cut loose any form of tonality to follow a droning, dissonant sound. Swans built the foundation of their sound on industrial-influenced atonality, while Sonic Youth began as an atonal band before adding elements of song structure to their music.
2. 2. Distortion. Manipulation of guitar and electronic instruments to produce feedback and other sounds has been a key element of noise rock since the Velvet Underground. The squalling sound of 1960s-era psychedelic rock informs the use of distortion in noise rock, which took it to its furthest extremes in the ear-splitting guitar grind of Big Black and the frantic thrash of Melt-Banana.
3. 3. Harshness. Anger, disgust, frustration—the emotions that fueled the punk scene carried over to certain noise rock bands. A willingness to upset listeners with abrasive and even offensive lyrics was a mainstay of music by Big Black and especially the Butthole Surfers, who gleefully trafficked in disturbing images and bodily functions.
4. 4. Improvisation. The avant-garde composer LaMonte Young’s improvisational minimalist compositions had a strong influence over the Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed and John Cale, who had studied or performed with Young. Their willingness to explore uncharted reaches with their music was echoed by bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and Swans.

There are several famous noise rock musicians whose music helped define the subgenre:

1. 1. Brian Chippendale. The drummer and vocalist for Rhode Island’s Lightning Bolt, Brian Chippendale, fused the sprawling improvisation of avant-garde jazz musicians like Sun Ra with the thunderous attack of Japanese noise bands like the Boredoms. WIth bassist Brian Gibson, Lightning Bolt’s music is aggressive in every way, from incomprehensible lyrics to the band’s penchant for playing on the floor of a concert venue instead of the stage.
2. 2. Michael Gira. The leader of the long-running Swans, Michael Gira, oversaw a frequently rotating group of musicians from the band’s founding during the No Wave days of the late 1970s to the present. Initially a pure wall of brutal sound, Swans’s subsequent work ventures into complex droning sounds.
3. 3. Steve Albini. As the leader of such savage noise rock acts like Big Black, Rapeman, and Shellac, Steve Albini has reveled in a mix of uncompromising musical performance and dark, bleak critiques of mainstream life and art. In more recent years, Albini has served as producer on albums by Nirvana, the Breeders, PJ Harvey, and the Stooges.
4. 4. Thurston Moore. Moore was a founding member of one of noise rock’s most prolific and influential bands, Sonic Youth, from 1980 until their indefinite hiatus in 2011. His affinity for improvisational and experimental music has extended to his solo music career, his record label Ecstatic Peace, movie soundtracks, and scholarly articles on free jazz, among many other pursuits.

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