Tad - God's Balls (LP)

Some records still smell like concrete dust and hot valves the moment the needle hits. Tad’s debut, God’s Balls, is one of those slabs. Released in 1989 on Sub Pop and recorded by Jack Endino at Seattle’s now-mythic Reciprocal Recording, it captures the heavier, grimier corner of the grunge map at the moment the city started exporting noise to the rest of the world. Where their labelmates chased garage-psych gush or punky swing, Tad went low, slow and mean. The guitars sag like power lines after a storm, the bass chews through the mix, and Tad Doyle’s bark feels half biker rally, half black comedy.

Endino’s production is key. You can hear a room, not just a rig. Cymbals whoosh rather than sparkle. Guitars choke and bloom at once, like they are overloading the desk but somehow still in focus. It is the sort of sound you associate with the old Reciprocal space, that concrete room where a million riffs got hammered into shape. God’s Balls doesn’t tidy anything up. It lets the band’s mass do the talking and trusts your speakers to cope.

The lineup at this point was Tad Doyle on guitar and vocals, Gary Thorstensen on second guitar, Kurt Danielson on bass, and Steve Wied on drums. They play like a unit that has spent too many nights hauling gear up wet stairs. Riffs come in blocks. The rhythm section pushes air like a busted air conditioner. Doyle’s voice is a bullhorn wrapped in flannel, which suits lyrics that tilt from blue-collar menace to deadpan humour. There’s always been a wink in Tad’s world, the way a horror flick can make you laugh right before it makes you jump.

If you came to Seattle via Nirvana or Mudhoney, this is the band that put the word “grunge” back in its work boots. Tad shared bills with those groups not long after this came out, including UK runs that helped spread the Sub Pop gospel, and they felt like the heaviest piece of the puzzle. Critics have circled back over the years and treated God’s Balls as a crucial document of the era, less a prelude and more its own peak. When Sub Pop reissued the early Tad catalogue in 2016, remastered by Endino, a new wave of listeners finally heard the album at a volume and clarity that suits it. If you’re eyeing God’s Balls vinyl from that reissue run, it is a very satisfying way to feel those kick drums in your ribs.

Standouts depend on what you’re after from heavy guitar music. If it is sheer heft, the opening cuts serve it hot, with riffs that feel detuned even when they’re not. If it is character, listen to the way Doyle plays with persona, leaning into the lumberjack myth while undercutting it with a grin. The band’s knack for a hook never gets enough credit either, probably because the hooks arrive wrapped in barbed wire. You catch yourself humming a line, then realise it is attached to a song about something bleak and slightly absurd.

The lore around Tad can swallow the songs if you let it. The MTV kerfuffle over the “Wood Goblins” video, the absurd promo photos, the later legal headaches, all of it has become part of their mythology. But God’s Balls is the part that matters. It’s a document of four players hitting on a shared language, one that later fed into sludge metal, stoner rock, and the heavier post-hardcore edges, without ever losing its punk roots.

From a vinyl tragic’s viewpoint, this album belongs on the shelf next to Bleach and Superfuzz Bigmuff, not because it sounds like them, but because it answers them. Spin it after dark and you’ll hear the city’s other voice, the one coming from warehouse practice rooms and basement parties where the beer is warm and the floor is sticky. If you’re hunting Tad vinyl, do yourself a favour and grab God’s Balls vinyl first, then work forward. There are solid pressings floating around, and the 2016 edition cleans up the murk without sanding off the grit. If you’re in a Melbourne record store, it’s the sort of title staff keep near the counter to show someone what heavy sounded like before budgets and polish. And if you need to buy Tad records online from elsewhere in Australia, plenty of shops specialising in vinyl records Australia will point you straight to it, often filed under essential Sub Pop and early grunge. Tad albums on vinyl don’t stick around long, which feels fitting. This music wants to be played loud, not left to gather dust.