Congregation
Artist: The Afghan Whigs
Community Score: 7.00

The grunge era's most overlooked masterpiece, Congregation was the Afghan Whigs' breakthrough album, an incendiary and insidious set which bridges the gap between the noisy aggression of the band's early releases and the soulful swagger of their later work. Slipping with ominous ease into the sinister, self-obsessed Lothario guise which would... Read More

Smoke 'em If You Got 'em
Artist: Reverend Horton Heat

Given how the psychobilly/punk/greaser/whatever underground just seemed to grow and grow throughout the '90s, there's every reason in the world to choose this album as one of the things that sparked it off. Little doubt as to why, too, re-recorded on two-track after a more technically complex version was deemed to lack that certain something,... Read More

Dry
Artist: PJ Harvey
Community Score: 9.12

Polly Jean Harvey arrives fully formed as a songwriter on PJ Harvey's debut album, Dry. Borrowing its primitive attack from post-punk guitar rock and its form from the blues, Dry is a forceful collection of brutally emotional songs, highlighted by Harvey's deft lyricism and startling voice, as well as her trio's muscular sound. Her voice makes... Read More

Pubic Fruit
Artist: Curve
Community Score: 8.90

Pubic Fruit is not a proper follow-up to Curve's debut full-length, but, instead, it gathers together three of the band's earlier E.P. releases which had only been released in the U.K. and adds the previously unavailable 12" version of "Fait Accompli." Despite the album being a compilation of sorts, it holds together quite nicely and provides a... Read More

Cunning Stunts
Artist: The Cows

The release of Cunning Stunts signals a "maturity" to the Cows, but it really means that riffs and hooks are starting to emerge from their usual tar pit of sound. Although Shannon Selberg's ranting and raving dominate the proceedings, it's guitarist Thor Eisenstrager who steals the show with his frenetic playing and bold experimentation. Not the... Read More

Dirt
Artist: Alice in Chains
Community Score: 8.68

Dirt is Alice in Chains' major artistic statement and the closest they ever came to recording a flat-out masterpiece. It's a primal, sickening howl from the depths of Layne Staley's heroin addiction, and one of the most harrowing concept albums ever recorded. Not every song on Dirt is explicitly about heroin, but Jerry Cantrell's solo-written... Read More

Dirty
Artist: Sonic Youth
Community Score: 7.39

When DGC Records signed Nirvana in 1991, one of DGC's A&R reps expressed the opinion that, with plenty of touring and the right promotion, the new act might sell as well as its labelmate and touring partner Sonic Youth. The surprise success of Nevermind upended previous commercial expectations for Sonic Youth (among other established alternative... Read More

Copper Blue
Artist: Sugar
Community Score: 7.00

How ironic that after years fronting the hugely influential but desperately overlooked Hüsker Dü, Bob Mould's first project with new band Sugar, 1992's Copper Blue, would become the most commercially successful project of his career. Of course, it was released just as the seeds sown by his former band were bearing bountiful fruits in the... Read More

T.V. Sky
Artist: Young Gods
Community Score: 10.00

In a conscious shift of aesthetics, the very European Gods turned their eyes on America with the band's fourth album, producing its most 'rock' record to date, a consistently strong smash. Opening with "Our House," it all seems (powerful) business as usual - odd sonic loops, rhythm patterns suddenly exploding into mass drum/riff combinations.... Read More

Badmotorfinger
Artist: Soundgarden
Community Score: 7.54

Bidding for a popular breakthrough with their second major-label album, Soundgarden suddenly developed a sense of craft, with the result that Badmotorfinger became far and away their most fully realized album to that point. Pretty much everything about Badmotorfinger is a step up from its predecessors -- the production is sharper and the music... Read More

The Nymphs
Artist: Nymphs

Since Nirvana's Nevermind pretty much killed glam-metal, the Nymphs' self-titled (and only) album might well be the last great glam-metal album. Released the same year as Nevermind, female lead singer Inger Lorre shares Kurt Cobain's sense of angst, a sense that was absent from most glam. In "Wasting My Days," Lorre sings, "Talk to myself, cuz... Read More

Eggnog
Artist: Melvins
Community Score: 5.15
The Way to Salvation
Artist: King Missile

King Missile's initial stab at the world of major labeldom was fair if not great -- lacking absolute standout numbers like Mystical Shit's genius "Jesus Was Way Cool" and "Gary & Melissa," The Way to Salvation is enjoyable enough but lacks a final killer touch. Having Lou Giordano on production instead of Kramer is also a bit disconcerting --... Read More

Live in Toronto
Artist: The Chameleons UK

Thankfully captured by editor of the noted Big Takeover fanzine (and Chameleons diehard) Jack Rabid from a radio broadcast of a Canadian date in early 1987, Toronto remains the only official live document of the band from their final days, and the only one with a full mix of material from all three albums. Though the sound betrays the disc's... Read More