Painkiller – Buried Secrets (1992)

When people talk about extremity in early ’90s heavy music, Painkiller often sits outside the usual lineage. Too brutal for jazz purists, too abstract for metal traditionalists, and too confrontational for casual listeners, the trio of John Zorn, Bill Laswell, and Mick Harris existed in a category entirely of their own. Buried Secrets, released in 1992 on Earache Records, is the moment where that experiment fully detonates.

This is not an album that eases you in. It assaults, fragments, and disorients—yet beneath the chaos is a startling level of intent, discipline, and vision.

The Unholy Trinity

Painkiller was never a “band” in the conventional sense. It was a collision of three already-established forces:

• John Zorn (alto saxophone): known for Naked City, Masada, and an encyclopedic grasp of avant-garde composition and hardcore aesthetics

• Bill Laswell (bass): producer, dub pioneer, and sonic architect behind countless experimental and heavy projects

• Mick Harris (drums): freshly emerging from Napalm Death, bringing grindcore’s blastbeat violence into uncharted territory

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What Buried Secrets captures is the point where these worlds stop orbiting and fully collapse into one another.

Sound as Violence

Unlike Naked City’s rapid-fire genre switching, Buried Secrets is about sustained pressure. Harris’ drumming is relentless—less about speed for its own sake and more about density. His blastbeats feel industrial, almost mechanical, locking the music into a punishing forward motion.

Laswell’s bass is thick, distorted, and dub-heavy, acting as both rhythm section and gravitational force. It anchors the album, giving the chaos a low-end menace that keeps everything from floating away into abstraction.

Zorn’s saxophone is the most divisive element—and the most essential. He doesn’t solo in the jazz sense. He screams through the horn, unleashing sheets of noise, multiphonics, and shrill, sustained notes that function like another extreme vocal presence. It’s closer to harsh noise or power electronics than anything traditionally melodic.

Composition vs. Catastrophe

What makes Buried Secrets endure is that it isn’t random. Beneath the apparent free-for-all are structured themes, recurring motifs, and deliberate pacing. Tracks evolve, collapse, and reform. Moments of near-stillness give way to overwhelming blasts, making the violence feel purposeful rather than indulgent.

This balance—between control and chaos—is where Painkiller differs from most grind or free-jazz hybrids. It’s not a novelty experiment. It’s a composed confrontation.

Earache Records’ Most Dangerous Release?

In the context of Earache’s early ’90s catalog—Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Godflesh, Carcass—Buried Secrets stands out as one of the label’s most uncompromising releases. While many bands were refining extreme metal, Painkiller was dismantling genre boundaries entirely.

It also quietly influenced later developments:

• Experimental grind and noise-core scenes

• Industrial jazz and avant-metal hybrids

• Artists unafraid to treat sound itself as the primary weapon

You can draw faint lines from Buried Secrets to later work by groups like Zu, The Flying Luttenbachers, early Neurosis experiments, and even certain strands of dark ambient and power electronics.

Not for Everyone—and That’s the Point

Buried Secrets is exhausting. It’s confrontational. It offers no catharsis in the traditional sense. But for listeners willing to engage with it on its own terms, it’s a landmark document of what happens when extreme metal ideology collides with avant-garde freedom.

This album doesn’t ask whether jazz can be brutal or whether grindcore can be intellectual—it simply answers, violently.

More than three decades on, Buried Secrets still feels dangerous. And that may be its greatest achievement.