Saccharine Trust - PaganIcons

Trouser Press: Too early to be post-hardcore but too uncommon for any simple classification, this Southern California quartet doesn't try to create a blizzard of noise — they go at it more artfully, but with equally ear-wrenching results. On Paganicons, singer Joaquin Milhouse Brewer tunelessly barks lyrics (as in "We Don't Need Freedom" and "A Human Certainty") that aren't bad in a pretentious mock-intellectual vein; the music is loudly abrasive, but with spaces and dynamics largely uncommon to the genre.

All Music Guide: Formed in the early '80s by Joaquin (aka Jack) Brewer and guitarist Joe Baiza, Saccharine Trust metamorphosed from a dissonant, noisy, anti-rock quartet into a more sophisticated, but still jagged and noisy rock-jazz band. Frequently, the band's "songs" were semi- or wholly improvised using a basic riff or simple drum pattern for guidance, rapidy expanding into uncharted territory. Not the most important band to emerge from Los Angeles in the early '80s, Saccharine Trust is interesting for incorporating varied textural elements into a genre that was defined by volume and simplicity. This band took risks that many of their SoCal brethren would never have dreamed of taking. This, however, does not make Saccharine Trust better than their peers, simply different, and a little more intriguing. By the early '90s, Brewer started his own band called, big surprise, The Jack Brewer Band. Joe Baiza formed the fine, funky, and exciting Universal Congress Of.

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