Suede - Performance (1994)

AWESOME live show, with three additional live tracks thrown in for good measure (Later With Jools Holland, 4/6/1993 . The second to last of their last shows with original guitarist Bernard Butler (who is in rare form here). Of note is the opening song "Pantomime Horse," "Heroine," "He's Dead," and "Stay Together" (one of the 4 or 5 times they played it live; GREAT way to end a show) . IMO, this is britpop at it's finest.





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Suede - Stay Together (1994)

From allmusic (4/5):

"Although the chorus is the weakest of Suede's five singles to this point, thanks to an ineffective falsetto backing vocal by Brett Anderson, a lush and lustful, pretty verse -- another instant tune from guitarist Bernard Butler, the big talent in the band -- and a dramatic bridge punctuated by uncharacteristic background touches in the form of horns and cello make "Stay Together" another fine outing. It's no departure from the LP material, and the rather overt Bowie/Smiths influences are still everywhere, but this is no treading-water release either, particularly since the B-side "The Living Dead" brings the cello back to spruce up a gurgling acoustic track. Similarly, the other B-side "My Dark Star" continues Suede's Smiths-like tradition of high-quality shimmer pop B-sides that often beat their lesser LP material. Butler's guitar stabs like a throbbing tone underneath a tasteful lead in the vocal-less verse. Nice stuff, nice single, exceptional guitar work."



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Sonic Youth - Hallucinogenic Preserve (1996) [bootleg]

Great bootleg of their performance on tour after their criminally slept-on Washing Machine.



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Slowdive - Outside Your Room (1993)

"If you don't have Slowdive's EP's you're missing their most of their best music. Luckily, their contents are not nearly as difficult to find as they were ten years ago as a result of reissues and compilations. The original's still command very high prices, however. This one tends to get lost amidst the three earlier ones and the more Post-Rock oriented later ones, but it's still indispensible. Coupling Souvlaki Space Station with Moussaka Chaos is almost an overdose of pure bliss, but the hidden gem here is "So Tired" which has one of the most stunning down-tuned, reverbed guitar parts I've ever heard. All of Slowdive's music is timeless and ravishingly beautiful, and this album is no exception."



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Jacques Brel - Olympia 61 (1962)

From rateyourmusic (5/5):

"The songs are great, the arrangements perfect, the performances extraordinary. The set has such a terrific flow to it; he knows exactly when a change of mood is required, and almost seems to be telling some abstract story over the duration of the entire record to go with the specific ones in each song.

I realised it had become my favourite record when, almost without meaning to, I kept putting it on to hear the opening numbers (an excellent "Prénoms de Paris" going into a lung-stripping "Les bourgeois" which elicits stunned, even slightly frightened, applause after the first chorus) and found, without fail, that I could not turn it off until the end (when I would quite often put it back to the start and listen again). For a couple of weeks, I listened to it every day, most days more than once. I started to feel that the album was sending me insane, and I didn't care. This slip into the lunatic was confirmed when I heard the record leaking out of the iPod of somebody seated in front of me on the bus (this wasn't in Paris, it was in Rotherham). I took this as a sign from somebody's god that yes, this was it, this was the record. Maybe I should have taken it as a sign that I needed help. Hindsight etc.

Two years later, the fucking thing still makes me miss appointments."



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Saint Etienne - Foxbase Alpha (1991) deluxe ed (2009)

"This is what started it all. From album to album, the trio of Saint Etienne change musically like a chameleon changes its colors - and each change can be appreciated in a different way. There's something special about Foxbase Alpha, though. Sure it's a little rough around the edges (not having the help of the mixers from albums like Tiger Bay and Continental), but this album has a warmth all its own - a sort of timelessness, if you will. Some of the songs on the album are achievements that the Etienne have yet to top. 'Nothing Can Stop Us' is an amazing song, and it WILL put you in a good mood, no question. 'London Belongs To Me' washes you away in a dreamy sea of gentle vocals and synths. And of course, there's 'Spring', an utterly charming and innocent number. Those are my favorites, but I haven't even mentioned their outstanding covers - 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' by Neil Young, 'Kiss And Make Up' by the Field Mice... I could go on and on.

I love all of Saint Etienne's albums, and I appreciate each of them for what they are - it takes guts to make a pop record one year and a techno one the next, at the risk of seriously alienating some fans. Foxbase Alpha, though, is on a pedestal in my heart. Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs, and Sarah Cracknell may have gone on from here to explore newer, stranger, and wilder sonic frontiers, but this, their first foray into music, is simply magical."



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Rites of Spring - End On End (1991)

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"Released on CD by Dischord in 1991, this digital version of End on End covers the complete recorded output of the legendary Rites of Spring: their self-titled LP, the All Through a Life EP, and one extra song. One of the first bands to be labeled emocore, Rites of Spring would seem to transcend all labels as their music cuts right through to the heart of universal human experience. Emotional? Yes -- check out the bitter memorial relived on "For Want Of," the pulse pounding moment-grab that is "Drink Deep," or the devoted searches for honesty and meaning explored on "End on End," "Theme," and really just about every track on the disc. Hardcore? Yes -- emerging from the D.C. scene, the music is pure focused energy, not a single note wasted. The band at times is fast and furious, at other times lush and evocative though always with a sense of drive and melody. Rites of Spring hint at some of the territory vocalist/guitarist Guy Picciotto and drummer Brendan Canty would later survey with Fugazi, but this band is much more than just a stepping stone. End on End, quite simply, is a testament to the rich possibilities of sincerity in music."



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M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us (2005)

From allmusic (3.5/5):

"Before the Dawn Heals Us is M83's follow-up to the 2003 international breakthrough Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts. If you're noticing a trend toward drifting album titles, that's deliberate -- M83 mastermind Anthony Gonzalez loves crafting antigravity masterpieces of layered and meandering synthesizers. He's also the principal player on Dawn, with previous collaborator Nicolas Fromageau having moved into solo work. Left to his own devices, Gonzalez has made a more cohesive record than Dead Cities. As nice as they were, that album's synthesized soundscapes tended to drift into a foggy territory between Boards of Canada and Tangerine Dream. Dawn remedies that with the addition of vocals, more consistent beats, and a cinematic pace. "Teen Angst" and "Don't Save Us From the Flames" pin gorgeous melodies to an indie electronic sound comparable to the Notwist; "Flames" in particular is a great departure, roaring out of the gate with giddy drum fills and an oscillating keyboard squiggle. "Farewell/Goodbye" is an icy, Air-ish duet between Ben of Cyann & Ben and Big Sir vocalist Lisa Papineau; it's not the most effective thing on Before the Dawn Heals Us, but it works as a love theme to the imaginary Michael Mann film Gonzalez seems at times to be directing. (Check out that cover art.) The album also has its stretches of instrumental wander. "I Guess I'm Floating," for example, features a scattered sample of children's laughter over lingering keyboard flourishes. But Gonzalez never gets carried away on the breeze -- he'll set a mood, but he'll cut it wide open, too. "Let Men Burn Stars" is a breathy and innocuous lull before the recording's most intense passage, "Car Chase Terror." "Look at my hands, I'm shaking...." a woman (actress Kate Moran) says over the hiss of crickets, her words tense with fear. A moody electronic pulse fades in, and suddenly you're in the midst of the chase, narrated by the same scared voice -- "Turn the key! Go! Go!" -- and the melody is melodramatic and terrifying all at once. Before the Dawn Heals Us is ambitious for sure, an emphatic step forward from the linger of Dead Cities. But it might also be a transition album for Gonzalez, a storyboard of where he'll take M83 next."



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Portishead - Roseland NYC Live (1998)

From allmusic (3/5):

"By the end of the '90s, artists realized that CD and CD-R bootlegs of live performances were in high demand, which meant that they could profit by officially releasing certain "special" live performances. Portishead's one-night stand at New York City's Roseland Ballroom, released as PNYC, certainly qualifies as one of those "special" occasions. Performing with a 35-piece orchestra, Portishead runs through selections from its two albums, favoring its second slightly. On the surface, it doesn't seem like the orchestra would add much to the performances, especially since the arrangements remain similar, but its presence makes the music tense, dramatic, and breathtaking. This is especially true of the material from Portishead. On album, several of these songs sounded a little flat, but here they soar right alongside such staples as "Mysterons," "Sour Times," and "Glory Box." That alone doesn't necessarily make PNYC revelatory -- instead, it deepens a listener's understanding of the artist, much like the Tindersticks' The Bloomsbury Theatre. Which means, of course, that PNYC is much more compelling and essential than the average live album."



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Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun - (1992)

In honor of 4/20.

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"With Josh Homme's guitar tuned down two whole steps to C, and plugged into a bass amp for maximum distortion, stoner metal pioneers Kyuss achieve a major milestone in heavy music with their second album, 1992's Blues for the Red Sun. Producer Chris Goss masterfully captures the band's unique heavy/light formula, which becomes apparent as soon as the gentle but sinister intro melody gives way to the chugging main riff in the opener, "Thumb." This segues immediately into the galloping "Green Machine," which pummels forward inexorably and even features that rarest rock & roll moment: a bass solo. "Thong Song" alternates rumbling guitar explosions with almost complete silence, and "Mondo Generator" plays like an extended acid trip. The slow build of the epic "Freedom Run" and the driving "Allen's Wrench" are also highlights, and though the album is heavy on instrumentals, these actually provide a seamless transition from song to song."



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Happy Mondays - Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches (1990)

From allmusic (5/5):

"At their peak, the Happy Mondays were hedonism in perpetual motion, a party with no beginning and no end, a party where Pills 'N' Thrills and Bellyaches was continually pumping. The apex of their career (and quite arguably the whole baggy/Madchester movement), Pills 'N' Thrills and Bellyaches pulsates with a garish neon energy, with psychedelic grooves, borrowed hooks, and veiled threats piling upon each other with the logic of a drunken car wreck. As with Bummed, a switch in producers re-focuses and redefines the Mondays, as Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne replace the brittle, assaultive Martin Hannett production with something softer and expansive that is truly dance-club music instead of merely suggestive of it. Where the Stone Roses were proudly pop classicists, styling themselves after the bright pop art of the '60s, the Mondays were aggressively modern, pushing pop into the ecstasy age by leaning hard on hip-hop, substituting outright thievery for sampling. Although it's unrecognizable in sound and attitude, "Step On," the big hit from Pills, is a de facto cover of John Kongos' "He's Gonna Step on You Again," LaBelle's "Lady Marmalade" provides the skeleton for "Kinky Afro," but these are the cuts that call attention to themselves; the rest of the record is draped in hooks and sounds from hits of the past, junk culture references, and passing puns, all set to a kaleidoscopic house beat. Oakenfold and Osborne may be responsible for the sound of Pills 'N' Thrills and Bellyaches, certainly more than the band, which almost seems incidental to this meticulously arranged album, but Shaun Ryder is the heart and soul of the album, the one that keeps the Mondays a dirty, filthy rock & roll outfit. Lifting melodies at will, Ryder twists the past to serve his purpose, gleefully diving into the gutter with stories of cheap drugs and threesomes, convinced that god made it easy on him, and blessed with that knowledge, happy to traumatize his girlfriend's kid by telling them that he only went with his mother cause she was dirty. He's a thug and something of a poet, creating a celebratory collage of sex, drugs, and dead-end jobs where there's no despair because only a sucker could think that this party would ever come to an end."



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The Gun Club - Fire of Love (1981)

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"The Gun Club's debut is the watermark for all post-punk roots music. This features the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce's swamped-out brand of roiling rock, swaggerific hell-bound blues, and gothic country. With Pierce's wailing high lonesome slide guitar twinned with Ward Dotson's spine-shaking riffs and the solid yet off-the-rails rhythm section of bassist Rob Ritter and drummer Terry Graham, the Gun Club burst out of L.A. in the early '80s with a bone to pick and a mountain to move -- and they accomplished both on their debut album. With awesome, stripped to the frame production by the Flesh Eaters' Chris D., Fire of Love blew away all expectations -- and with good reason. Nobody has heard music like this before or since. Pierce's songs were rooted in his land of Texas. On "Sex Beat," a razor-sharp country one-two shuffle becomes a howling wind as Pierce's wasted, half-sung half-howled vocals relate a tale of voodoo, sex, dope, and death. The song choogles like a freight train coming undone in a twister. Here Black Flag, the Sex Pistols, Son House, and the coughing, hacking rambling ghost of Hank Williams all converge in a reckless mass of seething energy and nearly evil intent. As if the opener weren't enough of a jolt, the Gun Club follow this with a careening version of House's "Preachin the Blues," full of staccato phrasing and blazing slide. But it isn't until the anthemic, opiate-addled country of "She's Like Heroin to Me" and the truly frightening punk-blues of "Ghost on the Highway" that the listener comes to grip with the awesome terror that is the Gun Club. The songs become rock & roll ciphers, erasing themselves as soon as they speak, heading off into the whirlwind of a storm that is so big, so black, and so awful one cannot meditate on anything but its power. Fire of Love may be just what the doctor ordered, but to cure or kill is anybody's guess."



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A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head (2009)

From allmusic (4/5):

"Though A Place to Bury Strangers called their second album Exploding Head, it's arguable that their debut, with its walls of low-rent distortion and abrasive beats, was more cranium-crushing. Even if the band's move to Mute resulted in cleaner, ever-so-slightly calmer surroundings for their music, A Place to Bury Strangers' sound and songwriting have more power and nuance here, as well as more structure -- nearly every song balances the black-on-black menace of their debut with pop appeal. Nowhere is this clearer than on "It Is Nothing," which opens the album with a three-minute burst of buzzsaw guitars, or on "Lost Feeling," which boasts a subtle tension and dive-bombing dynamics that wouldn't have been possible on the band's debut. This faithfulness to shoegaze's dark side sets A Place to Bury Strangers apart from many of their fellow revivalists who favor wispy, cotton-candy clouds of sound. Befitting their name, the band is still obsessed with death and destruction, be it physical or spiritual (as on the aptly fuzzed-out epic "Ego Death"). Interestingly, Exploding Head's more polished production brings out some of the more retro elements in the band's music, underscoring their fondness for goth, synth pop -- and in "Deadbeat"'s case, surf rock -- as well as their shoegaze foundations. They sound more like a pissed-off, guitar-enhanced New Order than ever on "In Your Heart," and close the album with "I Lived My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart," which offers heroic doses of pure effect pedal-stomping heaven. At times, listeners of a certain age will swear they heard one of these songs on college radio or saw one of the band's video on 120 Minutes or PostModern MTV -- "Slipping Away" in particular has the feeling of a forgotten classic -- and that's a compliment. Exploding Head is a fine step forward for A Place to Bury Strangers, and shows they're among the best bands bringing shoegaze into the 21st century"



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Orange Juice - The Glasgow School (2005)

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"Orange Juice's three albums, along with compilations of various shapes and sizes, have floated in and out of print throughout the years. This hasn't made it convenient for anyone curious about the band, whether the interest was sparked by Haircut 100, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Belle & Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand, the unlikely mainstream success of Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You," the history of post-punk, or the birth of indie pop. The Glasgow School, released in 2005 by Domino, contains the band's four singles for Postcard, the bulk of Ostrich Churchyard (a disc released in 1992, containing early versions of what would become 1982's You Can't Hide Your Love Forever), a Stars on 45-style version of "Simply Thrilled Honey," and a crude cover of the Ramones' "I Don't Care." For a lot of people, the material here (dating no later than 1981) is where Orange Juice begins and ends. The band signed to Polydor soon after the latest song on this disc was recorded, and they promptly gave their sound a coat of shiny wax -- so they helped invent indie pop, only to abandon it before their first album. Though the notion extends throughout Orange Juice's discography, they were nothing if not fearless. What other way is there to describe lyrics like "I wore my fringe like Roger McGuinn's/I was hoping to impress/So frightfully camp -- you laughed," or their wholly convincing (if occasionally gawky) way of bouncing the jangly folk-rock of the Byrds off the fat-bottomed disco drive of Chic, all the while creating an identity all their own? Both the singles and the Ostrich Churchyard takes are as crafty as they are crude, and if you can't get past the amateurishness, there's plenty of winsome attitude to win you over. This disc serves as proof that, along with Josef K, Associates, Altered Images, Simple Minds, Cocteau Twins, and the Scars, Orange Juice helped make Scotland a very productive resource during the post-punk/new wave era"



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Mobb Deep - The Infamous... (1995)

From allmusic (5/5):

"One of the cornerstones of the New York hardcore movement, The Infamous is Mobb Deep's masterpiece, a relentlessly bleak song cycle that's been hailed by hardcore rap fans as one of the most realistic gangsta albums ever recorded. Given Mobb Deep's youthful age and art-school background, it's highly unlikely that The Infamous is drawn strictly from real-life experience, yet it's utterly convincing, because it has all the foreboding atmosphere and thematic sweep of an epic crime drama. That's partly because of the cinematic vision behind the duo's detailed narratives, but it's also a tribute to how well the raw, grimy production evokes the world that Mobb Deep is depicting. The group produced the vast majority of the album itself, with help on a few tracks from the Abstract (better known as Q-Tip), and establishes a spare, throbbing, no-frills style indebted to the Wu-Tang Clan. This is hard, underground hip-hop that demands to be met on its own terms, with few melodic hooks to draw the listener in. Similarly, there's little pleasure or relief offered in the picture of the streets Mobb Deep paints here: They inhabit a war zone where crime and paranoia hang constantly in the air. Gangs are bound together by a code of fierce loyalty, relying wholly on one another for survival in a hopeless environment. Hostile forces -- cops, rivals, neighborhood snitches -- are potentially everywhere, and one slip around the wrong person can mean prison or death. There's hardly any mention of women, and the violence is grim, serious business, never hedonistic. Pretty much everything on the album contributes to this picture, but standouts among the consistency include "Survival of the Fittest," "Eye for a Eye," "Temperature's Rising," "Cradle to the Grave," and the classic "Shook Ones, Pt. 2." The product of an uncommon artistic vision, The Infamous stands as an all-time gangsta/hardcore classic"

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Pulp - This Is Hardcore (1998) + This Is Glastonbury

From allmusic (4.5/5):

""This is the sound of someone losing the plot/you're gonna like it, but not a lot." So says Jarvis Cocker on "The Fear," the opening track on This Is Hardcore, the ambitious follow-up to Pulp's breakthrough Different Class, thereby providing his own review for the album. Cocker doesn't quite lose the plot on This Is Hardcore, but the ominous, claustrophobic "The Fear" makes it clear that this is a different band, one that no longer has anthems like "Common People" in mind. The shift in direction shouldn't come as a surprise -- Pulp was always an arty band -- but even the catchiest numbers are shrouded in darkness. This Is Hardcore is haunted by disappointments and fear -- by the realization that what you dreamed of may not be what you really wanted. Nowhere is this better heard than on "This Is Hardcore," where drum loops, lounge piano, cinematic strings, and a sharp lyric create a frightening monument to weary decadence. It's the centerpiece of the album, and the best moments follow its tone. Some, like "The Fear," "Seductive Barry," and "Help the Aged," wear their fear on their sleeves, some cloak it in Bowie-esque dance grooves ("Party Hard") or in hushed, resigned tones ("Dishes"). A few others, such as the scathing "I'm a Man" or "A Little Soul," have a similar vibe without being explicitly dark. Instead of delivering an entirely bleak album, Pulp raise the curtain somewhat on the last three songs, but the attempts at redemption -- "Sylvia," "Glory Days," "The Day After the Revolution" -- don't feel as natural as everything that precedes them. It's enough to keep the album from being a masterpiece, but it's hardly enough to prevent it from being an artistic triumph"



Also included is a bonus disc entitled This Is Glastonbury, a live show.

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ABC - The Lexicon of Love (1982)

From allmusic (5/5):

"ABC's debut album combined the talents of the Sheffield, U.K.-based band, particularly lead singer Martin Fry, a fashion plate of a frontman with a Bryan Ferry fixation, and the inventive production style of former Buggles member Trevor Horn and his team of musicians, several of whom would go on to form the Art of Noise. Horn created dense tracks that merged synthesizer sounds, prominent beats, and swaths of strings and horns, their orchestrations courtesy of Anne Dudley, who would follow her work with the Art of Noise by becoming a prominent film composer, and who here underscored Fry's stylized romantic lyrics and dramatic, if affected, singing. The production style was dense and noisy, but frequently beautiful, and the group's emotional songs gave it a depth and coherence later Horn works, such as those of Yes ("Owner of a Lonely Heart") and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, would lack. (You can hear Horn trying out the latter band's style in "Date Stamp.") Fry and company used the sound to create moving dancefloor epics like "Many Happy Returns," which, like most of the album's tracks, deserved to be a hit single. (In the U.K., four were: "Tears Are Not Enough," "Poison Arrow," "The Look of Love," and "All of My Heart," the last three making the Top Ten; in the U.S., "The Look of Love" and "Poison Arrow" charted Top 40.) ABC, which began fragmenting almost immediately, never equaled its gold-selling first LP commercially or artistically, despite some worthy later songs."



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The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands (1987)

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"Feeling no doubt burdened by the various claims of being the new Sex Pistols, and likely fed up with accusations that the walls of feedback were their own trick, the Reid brothers underwent a bit of a rethink with Darklands. The end result must have fallen squarely between two camps -- hardly eligible for sunny commercial airplay, not quite as flailing as the earliest efforts -- but, from a distance, this is an appealing, enjoyable record. Songs were often longer while the album itself was shorter than Psychocandy, walls of sound were often stripped away in favor of calmer classic rock twang and groove, while William Reid took the lead vocal at points, showing he had a slightly sweeter, wistful tone in comparison to his brother. However, the changes on Darklands can be overstated -- the basic formula at the heart of the band (inspired plagiarism of melodies and lyrics alike, plenty of reverb, etc.) stayed pretty much the same, even if the mixes were cleaned up -- compare "Down on Me" to any Psychocandy cut for a good example of the difference. The use of drum machines in place of Bobby Gillespie's rumble tended to enforce the newer focus, but at the album's best, such a seeming dichotomy didn't cause too much worry. "April Skies" made for a great single, while the soaring-in-spite-of-itself "Happy When It Rains" was another winner, one that Garbage more or less made its own some years later for its own similarly titled hit. William's singing turns made for other highlights as well, notably "Nine Million Rainy Days," the overt misery of the title suiting the dark crawl of the song, and the lengthy lament "On the Wall." Darklands is no Psychocandy in the end -- nothing the band released later ever was -- but it's still a good listen."



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Binary Star - Masters of the Universe (2000)

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"Any lucky owner of Binary Star's limited-distribution pressing of the 1999 LP Waterworld would already be familiar with most of the material on Masters of the Universe. It has everything a great hip-hop album requires, with varied beats, differing rhyme deliveries, and content you'll find yourself thinking about long after it's been said. Unfortunately, without a huge marketing budget from a major label, this album will probably fail to reach the level of success it deserves, but then again, Binary Star isn't necessarily after the typical ideal of success. With quotes like this -- "Rap's got 'em brainwashed with cash that don't last/And five minutes of fame, that's when it's a shame/Seein' real MCs try to imitate rappers/If you ask me, they goin' out ass-backwards/Tradin' in respect just to push a phat Lex/And Puffy rhymin' on the remix, what's next?!" -- it's easy to see why this is a refreshing alternative from the mainstream of rap."



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The Gun Club - Miami (1982)

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"The sophomore record by the Gun Club bore the curse of having to follow a monolith of their own making. Fire of Love sold extremely well for an independent; it was a favorite of virtually every critic who heard it in 1981. Miami showcased a different lineup as well. Ward Dotson replaced Congo Powers (temporarily, at least) on guitar, and there were a ton of guest performances, including Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. Stein produced the album. Off the bat the disc suffers from a thin mix. Going for a rougher sound, Stein left the instruments at one level and boosted Pierce's vocal. There is plenty of guitar here, screaming and moping like a drunken orphan from the Texas flatlands, but next to its predecessor it sounds drier and reedier. Ultimately it hardly matters. Going for a higher, more desolate sound, frontman and slide player Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his band were literally on fire. The songs here, from "Carry Me," "Like Calling Up Thunder," "Devil in the Woods," "Watermelon Man," "Bad Indian," and "Texas Serenade," among others, centered themselves on a mutant form of country music that met the post-punk ethos in the desert, fought and bloodied each other, and decided to stay together. This is hardcore snake-charming music (as in water moccasins not cobras), evil, smoky, brash, and libidinally uttered. Their spooky version of an already creepy tune by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Run Through the Jungle" runs the gamut from sexual nightmare to voodoo ritual gone awry. Finally, Pierce and company pull out all the roots and reveal them for what they are: "John Hardy," is a squalling punk-blues, with the heart of the country in cardiac arrest. Dotson proved to be a fine replacement for Congo Powers, in that his style was pure Telecaster country (à la James Burton) revved by the Rolling Stones and Johnny Thunders. Miami was given a rough go when it was issued for its production. But in the bird's-eye view of history its songs stack up, track for track, with Fire of Love and continue to echo well into this long good night."

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