Suffer
Artist: Bad Religion
Community Score: 7.46

In early 2004, Epitaph released remastered versions of four Bad Religion LPs, as well as a tour film dating from 1989. Suffer was always one of the band's strongest albums, marking the reunion of its original lineup, tighter playing, and the blazing erudition of cuts like "Land of Competition," "You Are (The Government)," and "What Can You Do?"... Read More

(MIA): The Complete Anthology
Artist: The Germs
Community Score: 9.00

There are other collections with rarer material out there, notably the live Germicide and Media Blitz, but unless one is a rabid must-have-everything-Crash-breathed-on fanatic, (MIA) is everything one could ever want from the Germs in one perfect collection. Not simply a reissue of (GI) -- thus the joke of the title -- (MIA) pulls together... Read More

I Love Mekons
Artist: The Mekons

A series of rancorous disagreements with the high and mighty at Warner Bros. subsidiary Loud forced the Mekons into an unanticipated two years of silence that nearly scuttled this record and ended the band's career. Eventually, Warner relented (they had maintained the record was not good enough to release), and the increasingly restless Mekons... Read More

The Full Custom Gospel Sounds
Artist: Reverend Horton Heat
Community Score: 10.00

With fellow Texas maniac Gibby Haynes on production, Heat and his trusty sidemen go at it again on The Full Custom Gospel Sounds and do so with all the style and sass one could want. Kicking off with "Wiggle Stick," a perfectly lubricious number that ended up scoring the band some airplay with Beavis and Butthead, the good Reverend serves notice... Read More

In My Head
Artist: Black Flag
Community Score: 7.56

Hot on the heels of the live record came Loose Nut and In My Head, which showed significant improvement over My War and Slip It In. Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn were exploring by-now standard lyrical themes: hate, paranoia, loneliness, anomie, and violence, but framing them around music that was demanding, powerful, and exciting. In My Head is... Read More

Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors
Artist: Jello Biafra
Community Score: 10.00

The first of Jello's post-Dead Kennedys collaborations was a barnburner; hooking up with Canada's legendary DOA ensured all the punk power that fans could want would be there in a big way. Even though Joey Keithley and company aren't quite as agile as Jello's ex-bandmates -- everything here is more brutally Motorhead in feel than the nervous... Read More

No More Cocoons
Artist: Jello Biafra
Community Score: 6.50

The obscenity case fought over the Dead Kennedys' album Frankenchrist was a prolonged and bitter battle that Jello Biafra, the band, and the co-defendants eventually won, but the case was not without cost: Alternative Tentacles, which Biafra owned, was driven to the brink of bankruptcy by all of the legal bills involved with the case. Partly as... Read More

Against the Grain
Artist: Bad Religion
Community Score: 8.13

The third in a flurry of releases that followed Bad Religion's 1988 reunion, Against the Grain found the band's edge honed sharper than it had been in years. Epitaph's 2004 remaster respects this. Increased clarity between mouthpiece Greg Graffin, guitarists Brett Gurewitz and Greg Hetson, and the rhythm section of Jay Bentley and Pete Finestone... Read More

No Control
Artist: Bad Religion
Community Score: 8.40

The remastering for this 2004 version of Bad Religion's 1989 LP greatly amplifies the album's volume. It might also strip away some reverb from the instrumentation, but the latter observation is mostly theoretical, as this new No Control really just sounds louder. This is welcome, as it makes the band sound that much more direct on principal... Read More

Floored Genius 2: The Best of the BBC Sessions 1983-1991
Artist: Julian Cope

Released some months after the first Floored Genius and sharing its basic artwork and design concept -- even though it was released on a completely different label -- Floored Genius 2 is a wonderful collection of recordings Cope did for the BBC in between his earliest solo days in 1983 and Peggy Suicide's release in 1991. Mick Houghton, who did... Read More