Fusing blues, garage, avant garde, jazz and heroin addiction and alcohol into a grimy and dangerous-sounding concoction, Spacemen 3 were a band that was too much of everything in every extreme for its time -- the feel-good hedonistic days of the mid- to late-80s -- to earn the fanbase it so clearly deserved.

Like many great bands Spacemen 3 burned brightly and faded out quickly in a blur of drug psychosis, power struggles and animosity, but not beofre it left behind a litany of signposts to its greatness, notably "The Perfect Perscription," "Sound of Confusion," the various "Performance" albums and swan song "Recurring," which was basically two solo EPs on one album.

"Sound of Confusion" is an exercise in gritty garage psychedelia. "Perfect Perscription" intersperses moments of noise ('Take me to the Other Side') with moments of plaintive gospel-like beauty ('Walkin with Jesus' and 'Ode to Street Hassle') and ambient explorations that beat shoegazers to scene by about three or four years ('Ecstacy Symphony/Transparent Radiation Flashback'). Posthumous release "Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To" not only carries the best album title of all time but is also an extreme example of feedback as pop song, even besting the Jesus and Mary Chain in that department.

If you're not into noise then "Recurring" is the album for you. The first half showcases Sonic Boom's simplistic (in a good way) pop songwriting ('Just to See You Smile,' 'I Love You') along with the more classic S3 sound ('Why Couldn't I See'). The second half is basically the first Spiritualized album.

Threads of Spacemen 3 are clearly dangling in the music scene. Apart from J Spaceman's Spiritualized and Sonic Boom's Experimental Audio Research still going strong, bands like the Warlocks, Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre are following in S3's footsteps, though sometimes the footprints are hard to see. A slew of reissues via Taang records in the late 90s and a rumored DVD floating around ensure that, even if you haven't heard this destined-to-be-classic band, at some point you will.

Tests in particular is my favorite album from this band. The Glow Pt. 2 is good but a little too same-y for my tastes. Tests, however, has the delicate acoustic folk of "Anacortes has a Secret Love" which is one of my favorite songs of all time, then comes back with "Oh Anna" a thumping indie rock song that includes bits of jazz, psychedelia and tribal drumming. It ratchets up the tension then explodes at the end into something that prefigured Autolux by about five years. "Last Night of the Year" dips into shoegazer and "Microphone Pt. 1" and "Wires and Cords" emerge as playful testaments to the band's love of recording.

Tests is great, but you really can't go wrong with any album from Microphones.