Songs the Lord Taught Us
Artist: The Cramps
Community Score: 8.25

Continuing the spooked-out and raging snarls of their Gravest Hits EP, the Cramps once again worked with Alex Chilton on the group's full-album debut, Songs the Lord Taught Us. The jacket reads "file under: sacred music," but only if one's definition includes the holy love of rockabilly sex-stomp, something which the Cramps fulfill in spades.... Read More

Songs the Lord Taught Us - BONUS TRACKS
Artist: The Cramps
Community Score: 10.00

Continuing the spooked-out and raging snarls of Gravest Hits, the Cramps once again worked with Alex Chilton on the group's full-album debut, Songs the Lord Taught Us. The jacket reads "file under: sacred music," but only if one's definition includes the holy love of rockabilly sex-stomp, something which the Cramps fulfill in spades. Having... Read More

A 100 Flowers Bloom
Artist: Gang of Four
Community Score: 8.00

Two-CD, 40-song compilation that draws from all of their albums (including the ones from the 1990s) and a couple of early EPs, throwing in eight previously unreleased live performances, demos, and remixes (as well as the 7" single version of "To Hell With Poverty"). Although this is only two discs, it opens itself up to the usual box set... Read More

Starters Alternators
Artist: The Ex

I first heard of this fiery, powerful Dutch anarchist quintet more than a decade ago, when no less than the hard-to-impress Fugazi folks were dropping the band's name in interviews (without prodding). Somehow, the Ex has remained Amsterdam's best-kept secret over here all those years since, despite a plethora of LPs, all with great lyrics. If I... Read More

Shifting City
Artist: John Foxx
Community Score: 10.00

When John Foxx returned to music in 1995, he released two CDs within a very short space of time. Shifting City was closer to the "classic" Foxx sound of his earlier albums than Cathedral Oceans. With the assistance of Louis Gordon, Foxx created a CD of frightening experimental electronic sounds. To try to categorize this CD is very difficult.... Read More

Levitate
Artist: The Fall
Community Score: 9.00

Mark E. Smith was always in step with progressing musical styles, even if his vocal delivery and abstract material placed him square against the mainstream, so it's not a huge surprise to find breakbeat jungle on Levitate's first track, "Ten Houses of Eve." And the Fall frontman doesn't just add moderate elements of drum'n'bass, he bends... Read More

Ultra
Artist: Depeche Mode
Community Score: 7.97

When news surfaced in 1995 that Alan Wilder had departed Depeche Mode to concentrate on his solo project Recoil, the immediate concern among fans was whether the band would be able to hit past heights again. Though Wilder's profile was always much lesser than that of Martin Gore and David Gahan -- and almost even that of Alan Fletcher, whose... Read More

The Boatman's Call
Artist: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Community Score: 7.94

Murder Ballads brought Nick Cave's morbidity to near-parodic levels, which makes the disarmingly frank and introspective songs of The Boatman's Call all the more startling. A song cycle equally inspired by Cave's failed romantic affairs and religious doubts, The Boatman's Call captures him at his most honest and despairing -- while he retains a... Read More

Mutiny/The Bad Seed
Artist: The Birthday Party
Community Score: 10.00

Collecting the two EPs onto one disc, this release also includes two rough mixes from the Mutiny sessions as a bonus. "The Six Strings That Drew Blood," also later recorded by Cave's Bad Seeds, is a quick brawler like many a past Party classic, Cave hitting a strangled falsetto at points as the group rips along. "Pleasure Avalanche" works on the... Read More

Once Upon a Time: The Singles
Artist: Siouxsie and the Banshees
Community Score: 8.75

Once Upon a Time: The Singles collects all ten of Siouxsie and the Banshees' A-sides spanning the years 1978-1981, with four songs otherwise unavailable on LP. It's a neat and accessible encapsulation of the group's early guitar-driven sound -- a frosty, dissonant art punk that had a tremendous impact on the emerging goth rock scene. Unlike... Read More

Kaleidoscope
Artist: Siouxsie and the Banshees
Community Score: 7.25

After Join Hands, guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris departed the Banshees, leaving the band at a crossroads. Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin elected to soldier on with ex-Slits drummer Budgie and two guitarists, ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones and John McGeoch of Magazine as guest Banshees. Despite the personnel upheaval, the result is a... Read More

Singles 81>85 - AUSTRALIA
Artist: Depeche Mode

Replacing the original Catching Up With Depeche Mode compilation, Singles 81>85 subtracts two tracks -- the lightweight curiosity "Flexible" and "Fly on the Windscreen," which surfaced to better effect on Black Celebration -- and adds two, the full six-minute remix of "Just Can't Get Enough" and the original version of "Photographic," Depeche's... Read More