The band's guitar sound was also unconventional. Albini was determined to avoid the "standard rock stud guitar sound", and achieved a signature "clanky" sound by using metal guitar picks notched with sheet metal snips; the notch causing the pick to hit each string twice, creating the effect of two simultaneous guitar picks. Durango remarked: "I always thought that our guitar playing was not so much playing guitars, but assembling noises "created" by guitars." He and Albini respectively billed their guitars as "vroom" and "skinng" in the liner notes for "Atomizer". Mark Deming of Allmusic remarks that "The group's guitars alternately sliced like a machete and ground like a dentist's drill, creating a groundbreaking and monolithic dissonance in the process."