A harrowing, dingy, noisy song about the DTs, “Waves of Fear” from Lou Reed‘s eleventh album The Blue Mask is one of his more uncompromising songs (which is saying something). It’s just Reed’s description of what it’s like to detox, with no varnish and no protecting the listener from the misery, with Reed almost spitting the lyrics. It’s combined with an extremely grimy and relatively noisy rhythm guitar part, followed by just a bonkers solo from former Voidoid Robert Quine. It’s a deep cup fora number of reasons.
If someone should cover it, it’s probably a band called Pissed Jeans. They are a hardcore band Pennsylvania who have been recording for twenty years. Their band name definitely connotes a similar experience to some of the lyrics of “Waves of Fear.”
Pissed Jeans’ approach is to double-down on the griminess of the original. They go sludgier, if that’s possible and lead singer Matt Korvette shouts the vocal like he is in a hardcore band (which he is). They really lean into Reed’s lyrics and sound and take it a step further. There’s a much briefer solo at the very end of the track but mostly they just play the sludgy slide melody for the outro until the 20 seconds or so.
It’s quite faithful. But given how distinct he song is, that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this case. They fully capture Reed’s own personal sense of disgust and paranoia. Check it out:
