Harvey Milk 'S/T'

Recorded in 1994 and originally intended to be Harvey Milk’s debut album, the band’s self-titled record sat unreleased for more than a decade before finally emerging as one of the great lost documents of early American sludge and experimental metal.

Known for years among fans as the “Bob Weston Sessions,” the album was recorded with Bob Weston of Shellac and captures Harvey Milk at their earliest and most brutally direct. Creston Spiers, Stephen Tanner and Paul Trudeau move between crushing, glacial riffs, abrasive noise, unexpected shifts in tempo and the unmistakable voice of Spiers, whose wounded howl gives even the record’s heaviest moments a strange emotional weight. 

Tracks including “Blueberry Dookie,” “Plastic Eggs,” “Merlin Is Magic,” “My Father’s Life’s Work,” “Jim’s Polish” and “F.S.T.P.” show the Athens, Georgia trio already developing the combination of sludge, drone, noise and deeply unconventional songwriting that would define their catalog.
The original sessions were shelved and circulated for years through increasingly degraded copies before Hydra Head finally brought the record into the light. A limited vinyl edition appeared in 2009, followed by a fully remastered release in 2010.

Raw, strange and impossibly heavy, Harvey Milk captures a band that already sounded unlike almost anyone else before their proper debut had even been released.