Any Day Now
Artist: The Legendary Pink Dots

More cohesive than Island of Jewels and more streamlined than Asylum, Any Day Now stands as one of The Legendary Pink Dots' best albums of the ‘80s, ex-aequo with The Tower. There is no specific unifying theme this time, although alienation and estrangement seem to permeate the whole project. The Dots' keyboard patches were starting to get old... Read More

Invisible Hits
Artist: The Soft Boys

A collection of lost recordings and previously unreleased tracks, a number of this album's cuts remain Soft Boys classics, like "Rock 'n' Roll Toilet," "Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole," "Have a Heart Betty (I'm Not Fireproof)," and "He's a Reptile." Most of the songs were recorded in 1978-79 during the sessions prior to A Can of Bees and Underwater... Read More

Mark of the Mole
Artist: The Residents
Community Score: 8.00

After Eskimo, the band's attempt to sonically recreate Inuit tales through sound, the Residents began to undertake a similar project that would color the rest of their career. The Mark of the Mole trilogy would result in three albums and a world tour that would nearly bankrupt the band and Ralph Records, and cause (rumor has it) two of the... Read More

Nunsexmonkrock
Artist: Nina Hagen
Community Score: 7.50
Unbehagen
Artist: Nina Hagen Band
Pop-Eyes
Artist: Danielle Dax

"Today's not the same as before/Starting with a clean slate/Promises of new rewards." This seems an appropriate beginning to Danielle Dax's first solo record, which comes on the heels of a two-album stint with experimental pop group the Lemon Kittens. Certainly, Dax makes the most of this particular tabula rasa. Self-written, produced, and... Read More

Script of the Bridge
Artist: The Chameleons UK
Community Score: 10.00

With two years, numerous radio sessions, and incessant gigging under their belts since their debut single, "In Shreds," the Chameleons came to the studio determined to make a great first album with Script of the Bridge. To say they succeeded would be like saying Shakespeare did pretty well with that one Hamlet play of his. Script remains a... Read More

Underwater Moonlight
Artist: The Soft Boys

After recording the material that would later comprise the bulk of Invisible Hits, the Soft Boys recorded their masterpiece, the shimmering neo-psychedelic Underwater Moonlight. Essentially, the band didn't change their style for the record -- they merely perfected it. The Soft Boys don't hide their influences -- whether its the ringing guitars... 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

Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat
Artist: Minutemen

What Makes a Man Start Fires? marked a real step forward for the Minutemen, and while Double Nickels on the Dime was where the group would reach their peak, there were plenty of signs pointing to that album's diverse brilliance on this eight-song EP. While "Dreams Are Free, Motherfucker!" and "The Toe Jam" are goofy, noisy throwaways (hey, this... Read More

Stone Circles: Legendary Pink Dots Anthology
Artist: The Legendary Pink Dots
Staring at the Sea: The Images
Artist: The Cure
Community Score: 8.67

Starting with an at-once hilarious and enlightening archival home movie clip showing the band in its earliest days with its original lead singer at an open-air performance in Robert Smith's hometown, Crawley -- the '70s hairdos and general clothing bespeak a time well before "goth" was invented -- Images is a fantastic collection of the band's... Read More