Bricks Are Heavy by L7

Bricks Are Heavy, L7's third album, came out on Slash on April 14, 1992, with Butch Vig producing, and it's where the Los Angeles band sharpened their sludge into something lethal. Donita Sparks sings and plays guitar, Suzi Gardner plays guitar too, Jennifer Finch holds down bass and Dee Plakas hammers the drums, and together they make a noise that's thick, grimy and gleefully rude.

Vig gives the riffs weight without sanding off the snot. "Pretend We're Dead" is the one that broke through, a lazy, grinding groove with a sneering singalong chorus that alternative radio could not stop playing, and it cracked the top 10 on the Modern Rock chart. "Wargasm" is harder and angrier, a punk-metal stomp. Lumped in with grunge and riot grrrl, L7 were really their own thing, and this record proves it. It topped the Heatseekers chart and had sold 327,000 copies in the US by 2000.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.