In on the Kill Taker

In on the Kill Taker is the third full-length studio album by the American post-hardcore band Fugazi. It was released on June 30, 1993, through Dischord Records and was recorded at Inner Ear Studios and produced by Ted Niceley and Don Zientara. In on the Kill Taker captured the aggressiveness of the band's earlier releases while displaying a more diverse range of influences. Due in part to the popularity of alternative rock in the early 1990s, In on the Kill Taker became the group's first album to debut on the Billboard charts and subsequently became the band's breakthrough album. Recording Fugazi initially recorded material with producer Steve Albini at Chicago Recording Company with the intention of releasing an EP. The sessions produced an album's worth of material, but the band was unhappy with the result and re-recorded the material in Washington D.C., at Inner Ear Studios with producers Don Zientara and Ted Niceley. The original recordings have been since been bootlegged on filesharing networks. The Chicago sessions meant that Fugazi arrived well-prepared for the second recording. According to singer/guitarist Guy Picciotto, “I think we really worked much harder on getting the songs together. We did a lot more pre-session demos, not just with Albini, but also using an 8-track reel-to-reel that we had bought to record our practices. It really changed the way we were able to work out the songs. It also helped us school ourselves a bit on how to engineer a basic recording.” The slightly more "polished" sound of the record was an intentional result of Niceley "reacting to what he [had] heard from the popular bands with the same DNA as Fugazi that were getting heavy airplay" at the time.