Pitchfork

Probably better not to make too big a deal out of Waterworks' "Shields". One wouldn't, for instance, have pegged Big Business as introspective types-- try reading an interview with them sometime, or with bassist-vocalist Jared Warren's old band, Karp. The lyrics to "Shields" are hard to make out anyway. Some sort of advice: "What could go wrong?" asks Warren-- "I can't count the number of ways." The third line of the song warns, "You could still drown in knee-deep waters," and it's this line that stands out, since those who remember Karp remember that their old drummer, Scott Jernigan, died in a senseless boating accident in 2003. But probably better not to make a big deal out of it, right?

Karp were noise-rock jokers, Am Rep gone punk-rock, the Beastie Boys by way of the Melvins and Black Sabbath rather than Led Zeppelin and Schoolly D. Big Business, on their second album now, are instead deadpan, metal-rock cool guys, with bigger bass riffs per song than Lightning Bolt and lyrics so apocalyptic they're practically biblical: songs almost entirely about disasters or the unnerving-- stampedes, lightning, ghosts, the coming freeze. "He's not prepared for this, she's not prepared for this, I'm not prepared for this, we're prepared for this," sings Warren on "Hands Up".

So Here Come the Waterworks is a kind of maudlin joke, in terms of titles-- fear of the pending deluge mixed up with a joke about how we're going to have to react. They do make it easy to ignore all this stuff though: Try spending any time focusing on the lyrics while simultaneously absorbing their avalanche of mountain-sized, devastating riffs. Warren plays his instrument like a guitar, which makes sense: Karp tuned their guitars way down, so they sounded like bass anyway, plus his voice is deep and hollow, the better to match. Stuttering phaser phrases; technicolor runs up the neck; churning low-frequency baths; you name it, it comes off Warren's bass, which twins the drums (played by Coady Willis, formerly of the Murder City Devils) in that seamless way only two-person bands ever really manage.

The two members of Big Business are actually in the Melvins now, and recorded (A) Senile Animal with them last year. With that monkey off their back-- that endless aspiration to that thick, chaotic sound-- the band, on Waterworks, went a different production route and signed up, of all people, Phil Ek, indie-rock super-producer. Waterworks, as a result, sounds gigantic, vast, and also sparklingly clean.

Loss, fear, and paranoia: Opener "Just as the Day was Dawning", which crushed the Invaders comp last year, asks "How can you sleep when you can't close the tears from your eyes," before merging into "Hands Up", which begins with one epic word: "STAMPEDE!" "Hands Up" is a sorta denim-boogie that eats up its three minutes in what feels like one or two; Warren and Willis charge forward, stutter for a chorus or two, then keep moving. Elsewhere, like on "Grounds for Divorce", and especially on "I'll Give You Something to Cry About", their epic doom track, the band sits on a narrow point, like Floor or their successor, Torche: a couple chords, pounded into oblivion. "I'll Give You Something to Cry About" taunts: "Take your time old man/ The mountains are happy to wait," and then later, "These vultures are happy to wait." In the background, falsetto oh oh ohs; let no one say this band has no sense of humor.

Or doubt their sincerity. Indie rock emotional-exhibitionism is what Karp were pranking in the nineties, and with emo and its ilk making such a splash in this decade, Big Business-style reticence and obliqueness carries that much more affecting weight. Better not to make a big deal out of a song like "Shields", because they don't. Just be thankful that it's there.