The Hives Veni Vidi Vicious Get It At Discogs Rousing, stompin' garage rock from these Swedes, with plenty of mod and frantic punk energy to keep you grooving along. "Party party!," they seem to be saying, and you just want to join. This is a definite change-up from the usual hyper-speed pop ska-punk dross offered on Epitaph. Perhaps this arises from the fact that these guys are only distributed…
Duran Duran Rio Get It At Discogs From its Nagel cover to the haircuts and overall design -- and first and foremost the music -- Rio is as representative of the '80s at its best as it gets. The original Duran Duran's high point, and just as likely the band's as a whole, its fusion of style and substance ensures that even two decades after its release it remains as listenable and danceable as ever.…
Front 242 05:22:09:12 Off Get It At Discogs A combination remix collection and wholly separate album, 05:22:09:12 Off (aka Evil Off) is a semi-sequel to 06:21:03:11 Up Evil, appearing about six months after the release of the first disc. Not only is it a fine companion piece to the earlier disc, it easily stands on its own, finding the band thoroughly engaged in some of its most extreme,…
Camper Van Beethoven Telephone Free Landslide Victory Get It At Discogs Camper Van Beethoven were one of the great, pioneering indie rock bands. When Spinart released the Cigarettes & Carrot Juice box in 2002, legions of Camper fans probably rushed out to pick up remastered versions of great albums that had been out of print for years. Two years later, when Spinart made the individual albums…
Billy Idol Rebel Yell (1999 Expanded Edition) Get It At Discogs Rebel Yell is Billy Idol's high-water mark, the place where he spun his breakthrough hit "White Wedding" into a full-blown rock & roll lifestyle. Maintaining the synth-drenched New Wave stance of his eponymous 1982 debut -- the album is lousy with synths; they set the pace and color the margins -- Idol ramps up the heavy metal guitar…
Galaxie 500 On Fire Get It At Discogs Having already made a fine account of themselves on Today, the three members of Galaxie 500 got even better with On Fire, recording another lovely classic of late '80s rock. As with all the band's work, Kramer once again handles the production, the perfect person to bring out Galaxie 500's particular approach. The combination of his continued use of reverb and…
Art Brut Bang Bang Rock & Roll Get It At Discogs "Formed a Band" was such a brilliant first single, and summed up Art Brut's aesthetic so perfectly, that there almost seemed to be no need for more songs from them. Driven by a jagged, ragged guitar riff, it sounded like it was thrown together in ten minutes tops, and had lots of great, quotable lyrics ("I wanna be the boy -- the man -- who writes…
Blondie Parallel Lines (Expanded Edition) Get It At Discogs Blondie turned to Britain-based pop producer Mike Chapman for their third album, on which they abandoned any pretensions to new wave legitimacy (just in time, given the decline of the style) and emerged as a mainstream, contemporary pop/rock band. But it wasn't just Chapman's influence that made Parallel Lines Blondie's best album; it was…
Def Leppard Hysteria 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition Get It At Discogs Where Pyromania had set the standard for polished, catchy pop-metal, Hysteria only upped the ante. Pyromania's slick, layered Mutt Lange production turned into a painstaking obsession with dense sonic detail on Hysteria, with the result that some critics dismissed the record as a stiff, mechanized pop sellout (perhaps due…
Röyksopp Melody A.M. Japan Special Edition Get It At Discogs Chilled-out or downbeat acts swept through the electronic scene during 2001 and 2002, prompting dozens of identikit compilations, all conjuring up images of exhausted clubbers returning home early in the morning and enjoying a cup of tea or a smoke after a hectic night out. And although downtempo electronica had always been largely…
Mandalay Instinct Get It At Discogs Mandalay is composed of Saul Freeman, the musical performance half of the esoteric "gallery band" Thieves, and his soaringly vocal counterpart, Nicola Hitchcock. Marginally lumped in with other ripple-free trip-hoppers of the mid-'90s, they enjoy moments of innovation and independence from the trappings of trip with the sprawling and ambitious Instinct.…
Lilys The 3 Way Get It At Discogs By the time of their fourth full-length album, 1999's The 3 Way, Lilys had already gone through a more dramatic evolution in just a few years than many bands experience throughout an entire career. Centered around songwriter and sole consistent member Kurt Heasley, Lilys began as a fuzzy shoegaze band, making sounds heavily influenced by My Bloody Valentine for…
Th' Faith Healers Lido Get It At Discogs Th' Faith Healers' outstanding full-length debut is a wonderfully visceral experience; while often lumped in with the concurrent shoegazer movement, the group's sound is far darker and grittier, their guitars churning instead of shimmering and their attitude menacing instead of blissful. Songs often spring from simple, hypnotic riffs and rhythms which…
Soulsavers The Light The Dead See Get It At Discogs Having traveled the dusty road previously with alt rock singer Mark Lanegan, U.K. production duo Soulsavers turn to the equally tortured soul Dave Gahan on The Light the Dead See, but this European union still opens their album with a mournful harmonica. Of course, Soulsavers have long been the production duo who prefers the sounds of spaghetti…
Gavin Friday Shag Tobacco Get It At Discogs Friday's third solo effort, as always with Seezer as his main collaborator, provided another development in his musical approach with the choice of Bomb the Bass mainman Tim Simenon as producer. Further continuing the initial experiments the two did on Adam 'n' Eve, Simenon helped create a dance-influenced album that ranges from industrial slams to…
The High Llamas Gideon Gaye Get It At Discogs Sean O'Hagan has obviously done his Brian Wilson homework, listening to all the albums the Beach Boys recorded between Pet Sounds and Surf's Up. Cheeky references to cuts like "Let's Get Away for a While" and "Surf's Up" pop up from time to time on this lush set, which takes its cues from both Wilson's most melodic and most eccentric qualities (though…
Trembling Blue Stars Her Handwriting Reissue Get It At Discogs Informed by the breakup -- both professional and personal -- of Robert Wratten and Annemari Davies, the gossamer Her Handwriting is heartbreakingly delicate and forlorn; few artists bare their souls quite so beautifully as Wratten, and the 14 tracks which make up Trembling Blue Stars' debut rank among his most sublime to date, shards…
Nitzer Ebb Showtime Expanded Collectors Edition Get It At Discogs Having arguably perfected their original formula on Belief -- as well as reaching its limitations -- Douglas McCarthy and Bon Harris started to experiment in a variety of different directions on Showtime, resulting in their best album. Keeping all the original D.A.F.-derived tension and approach of the group's earliest days but…
Clock DVA Advantage Get It At Discogs Clock Dva were a strange band in the '80s; not so much for their sounds, which were always somewhat misaligned within the Industrial scene, but for the fact that just when they seemed about to break up, they would release a masterpiece (the same thing would happen during the 1990 reunion, a year in which they would present "Buried Dreams", the hardest and most…
Howard Jones Dream Into Action (Super Deluxe Edition) Get It At Discogs Dream Into Action begins with Howard Jones singing "Things Can Only Get Better," a sentiment that only hints at the good vibes touted by the synth pop singer on his second album. On his debut, 1984's Human's Lib, Jones sang about positivity, but this sequel plays like a self-empowerment manifesto, filled with cautionary tales…
Two Lone Swordsmen The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate) Get It At Discogs Andrew Weatherall's first post-Sabres outing (together with Keith Tenniswood) is a truly beguiling cachet of alternately moody and unexpectedly funky down- and mid-tempo electro. Miles more complex and integrated than such future-funk wibblers as the Clear Records stable, Fifth Mission is often as…
The Damned Damned Damned Damned (30th Anniversary Edition) Get It At Discogs While the Sex Pistols will always have a prominent place in the story of U.K. punk, the Damned did nearly everything first, including the first single, the smoking "New Rose," and the first album, namely this stone classic of rock & roll fire. At just half an hour long, Damned Damned Damned is a permanent testimony to…
The Shamen En-Tact Get It At Discogs Besides being one of the few early British dance albums worth its weight in artistry as well as sound, En-Tact is a truly historical gathering of the cream of the new dance music; mixing and production come from a cast including Paul Oakenfold, William Orbit, Graham Massey, Orbital, Evil Eddie Richards, the Beatmasters, Meat Beat Manifesto, Joey Beltram, Tommy…
Gene Loves Jezebel The House Of Dolls Get It At Discogs Tagged by most fans as their favorite Gene Loves Jezebel album, with its fabulous sonics, punchy rhythms, soaring guitars, and bright and brash pop melodies, this is also the record responsible for sundering the band. In one fell swoop, producer Peter Walsh turned GLJ from a band whose brilliance lay in their ability to blend rock and goth…
Thomas Dolby The Flat Earth Collector Edition Get It At Discogs Exceptionally mature for a sophomore effort, The Flat Earth has held up considerably well since its 1984 release. This staying power belongs to a fantastic ensemble of supporting players as much as to Thomas Dolby's songwriting and crisp production. "Dissidents" steps in cautiously and conjures images of blacklisted authors and ugly…