Friday, August 31, 2018

Hagfish - two eps (1994-95)

For a good swath of the '90s Hagfish were the gift that kept on giving.  Four monkey-suited Dallas denizens dropped three, rock 'em sock 'em albums all bearing a modus operandi that registered somewhere between the Dickies and Descendents (with plenty more caffeine than the latter) and a buzzbomb guitar frenzy that would have run circles around Johnny Ramone.  The band's unremittingly vigorous cavalcade of power chords and melody made an utterly visceral impression on me, and their titillating, in-your-face themes of sexuality ensured their was nary a dull moment to be had.

In between the full lengths came a pair of independently released 7" eps, which I'm making available right at this very spot.  The first (to your slightly above right) pre-dated their major label stint on London Records, and contained early takes of soon-to-be signature tunes "Minit Made" and "Stamp (Eat it While I Work).  I believe all four songs overlapped with debut LP Buick Men, and may in fact be identical versions.  I never compared them back to back.

The second 45 (bearing a strikingly like-minded cover motif) showcased some exclusive songs to the record.  And some pretty exciting ones at that including the uber vindictive "Shiner."  Hagfish had something immensely special on their hands...but success was not in the cards, and they parted ways around 2001.  Of the four members from the final lineup, guitarist Zach Blair made the most of his post-Hag tenure, hooking up with Rise Against a little later in the '00s.  A full bio can be accessed on Wikipedia.

Hagfish ep (1994, BYO)
01. Minit Maid
02. Trixie
03. Stamp
04. Shark

Hagfish ep (1995, Go Kart)
01. Moaner
02. Crush
03. Shiner
04. Moon

Hear

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Sorry - Imaginary Friend (1984, radiobeat)

Remember when I took to task Sorry's '86 platter The Way it Is and blabbed something about their earlier "rough and tumble" hardcore years?  Well, you're about to hear what Sorry's nascent era was all about it, by way of Imaginary Friend.  In the form of eighteen cuts to be exact, many of which clock in at under ninety seconds, but if you're expecting fearsome, symmetrical slammers all cut from the same cloth think again.  Boston born and bred, this quartet weren't really along the lines of their hometown's more renown SS Decontrol or Gang Green.  Even back in '84, Sorry were picking up on the vibes of relative newcomers Mission of Burma, Volcano Suns, and early Husker Du - albeit not as effective, and definitely not as consistent.  They had a penchant for sloppiness and spouted an array of dissonant affectations that were a hell of lot more chaotic than calculated.  Most of IF's more notable moments reside on side one, entailing "Misanthrope," "One More Step," and "Doomed From the Start," the latter of which features none other than Burma's very own Roger Miller on keyboards, of all things.

01. My Word
02. Misanthrope
03. Doomed From the Start
04. Where Were You?
05. Why Do I Have to Look at You?
06. One More Step
07. Don't Assume
08. Bouncer
09. Imaginary Friend
10. Listen
11. No Concern
12. Unhealthy
13. On My Own
14. Buried
15. Mundane
16. Dirty Old Man
17. Honesty
18. 24

Hear

Sunday, August 26, 2018

I snuck out of work to see her smile.

From 1990.  Believe it or not these guys once had integrity...and songs to die for. 

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Adrian's Childhood - Sometimes I Feel Myself That Way (1990)

The little spoken of Adrian's Childhood were from said to hail from Seattle, but amazingly don't emanate a shred o' grunge.  More like turn of the decade alt-rock with nods to the likes of the Connells, Ocean Blue, and for better or worse Live (the band).  There's some tastefully executed jangle sprouting now and again, really benefiting some of AC's most potent offerings like "Ellensberg" and the deliciously sprite and spry "POP."  

I'm not in possession of a physical copy of this one, but whomever converted it to digital, I thank them for going to the effort, and furthermore for attaching four extra cuts that were independent of the Sometimes LP itself.  Given their rawer (and sometimes untitled) nature I have to assume these are demos, which just so happen to rival the album's finest moments.

01. Ellensberg
02. Tang a Tang
03. Joe's Ice Cream
04. POP
05. Til the Morning Comes
06. Chunk
07. Rena
08. AD
09. Lucy
10. Peppermills
11. untitled
12. untitled
13. New Moon

Hear

Thursday, August 23, 2018

New Math - Wake the Dead (1999, Reanimator) (rec. 1984-84)

This Rochester, NY quartet spent the second half of their lifespan as Jet Black Berries, but they wasted nary a second of their arguably more rewarding nascent years as New Math.  I dedicated an entry to JBB's Sundown on Venus a good five years ago, wherein I went into their background in slightly more detail.  Under the New Math incarnation, frontman Kevin Patrick and his cohorts were responsible for a couple of memorable punk singles, but they achieved full on righteousness on the subsequent They Walk Among You ep (1981, courtesy of 415 Records) and in three years time on GardensWake the Dead is a gently tweaked consolidation of those recordings. 

The arguably cheesy sleeve art to your right is a bit of a disservice to the caliber of the tunes housed within.  Yes, there was a discernible b-movie undercurrent to New Math, but luckily for anyone within earshot the emphasis was squarely on the songs, not so much the shtick.   Their sonic aplomb was largely defined by synth maestro Mark Schwartz, whose driving keyboard fills colored NM's relatively diverse palette that ranged from punk to garage to even something approaching conventional pop.  And despite hailing from such a wintry locale, the band seemed content to tip their collective hat to west coast contemporaries, running the gamut from the Gun Club to T.S.O.L.  NM's "mystique" may strike some ears as a bit dubious or even occasionally feigned, but with cuts like "Invocation," "Love Under Will," and "Ominous Presence" packing such robust melodic content, the inherent lyrical sentiments pass by as almost secondary.  Amidst New Math's typical indigenous sound, as it were, there are a couple of striking anomalies in this collection that I'd be remiss if I failed to highlight.  "American Survival" oozes an uptempo punk pedigree that Bad Religion only wish they could have conjured up for their synthy sidestep, Into the Unknown, while the bangin' "Johnny on Top" was liberally modeled after the Jim Carroll Band staple, "People Who Died."  Not to be missed.

01. They Walk Among You
02. Garden of Delight
03. Branded
04. Invocation
05. American Survival
06. The Flesh Element
07. Meets the Eye
08. Dead of Night
09. Pipes of Pan
10. Two Tongues
11. Take to the Night
12. Diana
13. Love Under Will
14. Johnny on Top
15. The Restless Kind
16. Break Up the Dance
17. Power of the Air (live)
18. Ominous Presence (live)

Hear or here

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Butterflies are passive agressive and put their problems on the shelf...

Likely my favorite album from 2002.  Hope it becomes yours as well.

Hear

Saturday, August 18, 2018

The Leonards - s/t (1988, Rock Ranch)

Here's one of the more straight-up rock and roll records I've offered in awhile.  The Leonards were a riff-pop powerhouse from L.A. who issued a spate of typically overlooked gems in the late '80s right up through the mid-90s.  You might detect shades of the Plimsouls and perhaps less so Dramarama, but I took these guys to be a bit more minimal than that.  Furthermore, if you're an aficionado of the Junk Monkeys and early Figgs the Leonards are about to roll right into your wheelhouse.  Enjoy.

01. She Said Goodbye
02. Questioning Days
03. Only the Skies are Blue
04. Out of My Mind
05. Don't Give Up
06. Consider It
07. Two Pillows

Hear

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Manifesto - tape (1990)

I opined on Manifesto a few years ago, or more specifically one of it's members, Michael Hampton who had been in a number of Washington D.C. era punk and hardcore bands, including SOA with Henry Rollins, and one-album emo wonders Embrace alongside Ian MacKaye.  By the end of the '80s he parlayed his guitar slinging abilities in an outfit (this one) that might as well have been a full 180 from the straight-edge circuit.  Manifesto sounded quite ordinary by comparison, almost generic in fact.  Generic in the "modern rock" strata anyway.  Mid tempo with a mild commercial bent yet wielding something of a thinking-man undercurrent.  Problem is, they sounded too damn ordinary for their own good, and by the time they unleashed an album in 1992, the twin headed hydra of grunge and Britpop rendered Manifesto's shtick all but invisible. There are at least a few keepers here, especially the downright catchy "It's a Long Time," which in a different set of hands could have been reconfigured into a power pop classic.

This cassette originates from 1990 and is packaged informally as if it were a demo or advance tape, however Manifest's album didn't surface for another two years.  Many songs overlap, but since I don't have the full length handy I cannot confirm if the versions presented here are unique.  Will try to verify at some point, but comparing track lists, some songs are exclusive to this tape.

01. See Them Move
02. Different Day
03. Meaning of You
04. Worlds Fall Apart
05. Just a Matter of Time
06. It's a Long Time
07. Down the Line
08. Feel it Coming
09. Sugar
10. Walking Backwads
11. instrumental

Hear

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Soul Asylum - Say What You Will... (1984) & Made to be Broken (1986) - Omnivore reissues - A brief review.

And where will you be in 1993?
   - "Never Really Been"

The above lyric swiped from an acoustic ballad on Soul Asylum's Made to be Broken LP, incorporated "1993" as a simple rhyming device, yet it proved to be ironically prophetic as that happened to be the year Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller, and Dan Murphy (the band's core triumvirate) broke bad and nationwide with "Runaway Train."  Situated in this era were two of their contemporaries that hurtled on a parallel trajectory as well, Urge Overkill and the Meat Puppets.  All three boasted fairly prestigious indie rock pedigrees, and relatively rich back catalogs...that their newfound mainstream converts were sadly content to ignore.  Indeed, there was life before Grave Dancers Union, and a spirited and often uneven one at that, but Soul Asylum's finer mid '80s volleys sometimes bordered on astonishing.  Omnivore has reissued their first two Twin/Tone Records platters, Say What You Will...Everything Can Happen and 1986's aforementioned ...Broken with a bevy of bonus material and a crisp remastering job worth the price of admission alone.

Any "Asylum seeker" (yep, I couldn't help myself) who caught wind of the band's initial gale force rush prior to signing to A&M and later Sony, was likely aware of two key things - they were punk rockers at heart, and they initially christened themselves as Loud Fast Rules.  That rip roaring moniker would probably strike most eyes and ears as a veritable mission statement, yet while the band did create fearsome hardcore blasts (revel in the gloriously thrashy attack of "Draggin' Me Down") the famed Minneapolis quartet had a penchant for juxtaposing those youthful outbursts with elements of jazz, rock, and in one instance even doo-wop.  From the get go, Pirner and crew were wildly diverse, even though they came up in a time when it was perfectly ok to stick to the aesthetic of their initial namesake.  Produced by already-known-quantity Bob Mould, Say What You Will commenced with a rather angular, Husker Du indebted track "Long Day, " accented by Murphy's distorted, ringing leads, that wouldn't have sounded out of place on Zen Arcade or for that matter any given Mission of Burma record.  It remains one of their most impressive feats to this day, and there's even more gold to be mined on SWYW, including the sax-laden spiel, "Stranger" and "Black and Blue" loosely challenging early Replacements.  Six additional rambunctious and mostly rewarding tracks were added to first CD incarnation of the album in the late '80s, all of which are reprised here.  The Omnivore edition tacks on about an EP's worth of unreleased Lost Fast Rules demos (bear in mind, not necessarily punk) and a rather sardonic cover of "Bad Moon Rising" credited to Proud Crass Fools.  Consider yourselves warned.

Fast forward to the Iran-Contra era for the band's tremendo leap forward, Made to be Broken.  Despite it's status as Soul Asylum's second full length, Broken has a tendency to sound even more organic than Say What..., albeit logically more advanced to boot.  It's yet another astute Bob Mould production, and it launches with the sublime visceral rush of "Tied to the Tracks," which might as well have graced Flip Your Wig.  Indeed, the very fact that one can attach the term 'visceral' to the band at this phase in their tenure shows how remarkably they progressed from just a couple years earlier.  The melodies alone are admirably discernible on "Can't Go Back" and "Long Way Home," with both selections being indicative of Soul Asylum's almost fully settled signature sound.  "Whoa," "Lone Rider," and "New Feelings" were ample evidence they still had plenty of high strung slammers to coax out of their systems, plus they operated just fine, thanks within the confines of relatively mellower tempos on "Ain't That Tough" and the previously quoted "Never Really Been." Roughly half of Broken's fifteen bonus cuts are culled from the band's cassette-only outtakes curio, Time's IncineratorThe remainder are entirely heretofore unreleased numbers, usually amounting to fleeting afterthoughts and/or abandoned ideas that only the most ardent of Asylum obsessives will develop a sincere craving for. 

Both reissues (CD only) are available straight through Omnivore or Amazon.

Sunday, August 12, 2018

in the basement of one man's one-man home...

A short but sublimely sweet one from '92.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

Sometimes Seven - Static From the Blender (1998, Kid Cadmium)

Though not as appealing as their more effective later albums (like 2000's Somehow You Just Don't Get It) I thought it wouldn't hurt to throw this one out there for historical perspective, especially since it's utterly impossible to find.  This indie rock to-the-core foursome seemed to be skewing in the vicinity of some of their contemporaries including, but certainly not limited to, J Church, Small 23 and even the almighty Archers of Loaf.  There's occasional glints of promise on "Call in Blue" and "Slowing Down," but Static... illustrated Sometimes Seven had miles to venture before really honing their craft.

01. Blurry
02. Slowing Down
03. Brighter Clean
04. Drama Mean
05. Zero Royal
06. Sister Destiny
07. Watching an Air Raid
08. Call in Blue
09. Blacktop
10. Real Change
11. Breaking Strings
12. Ex-Hall of Famer

Hear

Thursday, August 9, 2018

Fig Dish - Onanism (1999?)

I haven't shown any love for Fig Dish on here since about 2010, so apologies if I'm overdue.  What I'm sharing was relatively available a few years ago, but the original website hosting it appears to be defunct.  For those in the dark regarding who I'm even referring to, Fig Dish were an often excellent aggro pop-rock outfit from Chicago who recorded two albums for A&M in the mid '90s - That's What Love Songs Often Do (1995) and When Shove Goes Back to Push (1997).  Both disks were foisted onto a rather indifferent public, and commercially they went thud.  In fact, I don't think I ever happened across a CD of Love Songs that didn't have a promo stamp on the cover.  Pity all those uninformed kids who clung to their copies of Mellon Collie... and precious little else.  I saved the notes from the site that hosted Onanism, and they're below.  This is essentially an oversized batch of demos for material slated for Fig Dish's follow-up to Shove that never came to fruition.  Some phenomenal cuts too - "Ragged Ones," "Science Goes Public," "Senior Circuit," etc..

After two albums, with a combined sales of 16,000 copies, Chicago rockers Fig Dish severed their relationship with A&M Records in 1998. The band, consisting of Blake Smith (vocals/guitar), Rick Ness (vocals/guitar), Mike Willison (bass), and Bill Swarz (drums), went back into the studio to record demos to shop to other labels. RollingStone.com wrote a feature about Fig Dish’s departure and their subsequent record in which Smith said Fig Dish had no intention of breaking up and had recorded a double album worth of new material. Less than a year later Smith and Willison had started a new project, Caviar, while Ness started his own solo band, bringing Swarz along with him. So whatever became of those 2 CDs worth of material Fig Dish recorded?

After being locked away in the Fig Dish vault for nearly 10 years, we’re happy to unleash the cracken and offer you the 19 track demo that Fig Dish recorded and used in an attempt to find a new label. For fun, we’ve tossed in 2 songs that were on the hard-to-find “Quiet Storm King” CD-single released in 1995, “Eyesore” and “Spit the Part."


David Cobb, college roommate of Mike Willison, and longtime Fig Dish fan/friend/supporter dubbed this double CD, Onanism, so that’s the name we’ve given this collection of songs.


01. Burn Bright For Now
02. Cellophane & Sulphur
03. The Ragged Ones
04. Science Goes Public
05. If Not Now When
06. Trouble & Sway
07. Lake Five Blue
08. Take Me Whole
09. Tear The Atmosphere
10. All The Blues Are Pale
11. A.D. & D.
12. The Effects of Dehydration
13. The Bottom
14. Senior Circuit
15. Best Disguise
16. Carcharias Carcharodon
17. Extra Nanny
18. The Widow Cobain
19. When Shirts Get Tight (demo)
20. Eyesore
21. Spit the Part

Hear

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

The Posies - Dear 23 (1990/2018) & Frosting on the Beater (1993/2018) Omnivore reissues - A brief overview.

My first exposure to The Posies?  On an unsuspicious morning in late 1990 I was backing my Plymouth (not so) Reliant "K" car out of my driveway to attend a full day of high school.  I was tuned into the predominant local hard/classic rock station.  DJ announced he was playing a song by a new band dubbed The Posies.  Upon hearing the name I conjured up an approximate image of this band being the stylistic heirs to the Mamas and Papas or something.  That assumption quickly dissipated upon hearing the tune, quite possibly "Golden Blunders."  In short, said DJ successfully led this horse to water, but I wasn't quite ready to imbibe another sip until roughly three years later, upon release of the band's third record, Frosting on the Beater.  'Higher learning' would in fact have to wait a spell.

Essentially, I backtracked upon becoming enamored with Frosting in 1993, with the previous album, Dear 23 being something of a posthumous discovery for me.  Both records (and '95s Amazing Disgrace to follow later) are the subjects of a vastly overhauled reissues on Omnivore Records, getting the full remaster and expansion treatments, featuring a bevy of unreleased demos, outtakes and alternate versions, a good half of which weren't already covered on the At Least At Last rarities box set on Not Lame in 2000.

The Posies glorified demo of a debut album, 1988's Failure, was an often infectious exercise in witty folk pop.  Gloriously lucid if not so much ambitious, that nascent formula of the band's two prime movers Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer would be extrapolated, enhanced and exponentially magnified on Dear 23, which found the duo fleshing themselves out as a four piece, aided and abetted by bassist Rick Roberts and longtime drummer to-be Mike Musburger.  With 23's austere hues, startlingly bold, and even ethereal sonic enhancements, you'd hardly guess this was the same entity that crafted Failure.  The ironing table and laundry basket motifs of yore were usurped by sobering universal themes wherein the band exuded grand, post-teenage symphonies to the world at large, often by way of exhilarating harmonies.  Almost thirty years on, "Golden Blunders" is still vividly poignant, outlining the consequences of romantic faux pas, with "Apology" mining a similar theme, more in line with a pleading ballad than the former's singalong rocker.  Despite it's pristine facade, Dear 23 boasts it's own brand of musculature, amidst "Help Yourself," "Mrs. Green," and the fully blossomed second half of, "Flood of Sunshine," the album's epic closer that loosely unfolds a la Led Zeppelin's "Thank You," of all things.  Song for song, Dear 23 may not be the Posies career defining moment but is the most impeccably manicured and graceful record they would ever attach their name to - not to mention one of their masterpieces.  The two CD redux on Omnivore features a bountiful 27 bonus songs. Unnlike the extraneous filler on so many other deluxe releases, the twenty-plus demos (some full band, but many Ken and Jon solo tapes) are genuinely revelatory and will give you an even better appreciation of the finished versions.  Also appended are the two sides of the Big Star/Chris Bell tribute single, initially released 1992 on Pop Llama. 

Contemporary to 23 and Frosting, there was abundant ballyhooing in reference to the Posies newfound appreciation for Big Star - that and their supposed assumption to the throne of "power pop."  Both were exaggerations.  Virtually nothing on these two albums were as organic or straightforward as anything occupying #1 Record and Radio City, and even on Big Star's more idiosyncratic Sister Lovers, it can be a challenge to find direct parallels between the Posies and Alex Chilton (though both parties would later unite for a reconstituted Big Star).  Secondly, the Posies weren't three chord simpletons.  Catchy as-all-get-out, indeed, but far more sophisticated and brooding stacked up against a say, 20/20 or even a Matthew Sweet record.  If anything, they inadvertently carved out a niche for themselves that by happy accident meshed well with more pedestrian power pop.

The Posies were about to make yet another quantum leap, one that would inextricably define them for the remainder of their tenure in the '90s.  Enter Frosting on the Beater, their 1993 watershed that stripped off the ornate prettiness and ethereal gestures of Dear 23 in favor of a palate that was markedly rawer, denser and gleefully amped-out.  It may have stopped well short of blaring and obnoxious, yet Frosting undeniably signaled an exciting departure for Jon, Ken, Mike, and newly recruited bassist Dave Fox. In fact, Fox's fuzz-laden bass played a discernible role in filling out the band's distortion addled aptitude on buzzy pop salvos like "Solar Sister," and "Flavor of the Month," and equally within the confines of the slow-boiling "Burn and Shine" and the brooding comedown finale, "Coming Right Along."  The Posies hook-meter registered an all time high on Frosting, so much so that even if "Flavor" or "Definite Door" graced your ears just one day in any given year, those tunes would stay etched in your cranium for the remaining 364.  And I can't depart any discussion of this album without observing that yet another of the band's watershed moments, the more bitter than sweet "Dream All Day," has personally served as a sister song of sorts to the Smithereens similarly vigorous but reflective "Behind the Wall of Sleep."  In keeping with the penchant of the expanded Dear 23, Frosting on the Beater is bonus-ized with a solid thirty extras - demos for most LP tracks and about an album's worth of outtakes (in rough-hewn 4-track incarnations) with previews of songs to appear on subsequent Posies and Ken Stringfellow solo records.  Hot damn.

Dear 23 is available as we speak from Omnivore and AmazonFrosting on the Beater is slated for an August 24 release date.

Sunday, August 5, 2018

So you think that you'll never get burned...what are you doing waiting for your turn?

Classic punk (or would that be post-punk?) album from 1980 with three bonus cuts.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

Hear

V/A - Self Mutilation: One, Two, Three and More - A compilatiopn of compilations

Welcome to the soundtrack to my early college years (he emits a *sigh* in the most reluctant manner possible), for better or worse.  My reticence towards this one is less exaggerated than I'm letting on.  But before delving any further, as the title might imply, this one is a consolidation of three shorter form Self Mutilation compilations, specifically 7" eps, issued by the Aussie Hippy Knight label between 1991-93.  If it's "power pop" or anything on a remotely genteel tip you're seeking, best advised you move along.

The Mutilation series was bejeweled with a cabal of the era's most effective and grating noisenik punksters and grunge-amok hopefuls, with virtually none of it's participants breaching into the mainstream.  But as an international scene snapshot, this disc exposes the gritty, subterranean muck that even labels like Amphetamine Reptile weren't wiling to approach, or at the very least make a monetary investment in.  The likes of Atomic 61, Sandy Duncan's Eye and Meanies may ring a little raucous to some ears, but there's also thecomparatively less high strung Seaweed, You Am I and Superchunk, the latter of whom turn in a casual, 4-track acoustic version of "Cool," worth the price of admission alone.   As a parting recommendation, check out Green Magnet School's deliciously raw, but slyly tuneful "Blind In My Mouth," sounding something like a long-lost Dramarama demo.

01. Coffin Break - Cry    
02. You Am I - Snake Tide    
03. God And Texas - 1066    
04. Jonestown - El Segundo    
05. Green Magnet School - Blind In My Mouth    
06. Free Moving Curtis - Fire    
07. Poppin' Mommas - Now I Love Her    
08. Sandy Duncan's Eye - Polsen Petroleum    
09. Mother's Day - Birdy    
10. Superchunk - Cool    
11. Erectus Monotones - Tweeter And Quibble    
12. Screamfeeder - Snail Trail    
13. Vertigo - Shallow Water    
14. Nunbait - Shit For Brains    
15. Alien Boys - Timothy    
16. The Stump Wizards -    Fire    
17. Seaweed - Selfish    
18. Atomic 61 - Pussy Juice    
19. Seaweed Goorillas - Incest    
20. The Meanies - People Like Me

Hear

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Grady Sisters 7" ep (1993, Gometric)

I'm not exactly sure how the all male (in fact) the Grady Sisters made it onto my auditory field (quite recently in fact - a compilation perhaps?) but better late than never.  A little disonance and just a smidge of dynamics seemed to go a long way for this Petaluma, CA-area collective.  Occasionally Pavement-like, albeit not as cryptic.  Sorta rattling about in the same tin can as the Poster Children too, but a little deficient in the warm and fuzzy department.   Things peak on "s.w. log" which rips it's resplendent array of jumpy chords straight from the Wedding Present circa 1990 - right before diving into a jarring crush of blaring fuzz and static.  A beaut.

01. boss
02. self-government
03. deville
04. s.w. log

Hear

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Breeding Ground - Tales of Adventure (1986, Fringe)

Got a decent Canadian export for ya'll here.  Spectacular in spots, even but will get to that in a moment.  Having a mouthpiece (John Shirreff) who often sounded like Peter Murphy must have gotten Breeding Ground bullied with darkwave/goth accusations aplenty.  Things weren't quite that convenient however, as BG's sonic tapestry was more attuned to the likes of The Fixx, Cactus World News, and even country-mates Frozen Ghost.  And like many of the aforementioned these guys had a propensity for depth and echoing guitars, without ever getting too heady or pious (perhaps with the exception of Tales' anomalous "Happy Now I Know," which centers on Shirreff's apparent Christian leanings).  And regarding those rather spectacular songs I mention in my opening - "Turn to Dust," the title piece, and the unlisted "Reunion," all typify what was so rewarding in the often nebulous realm of 'modern rock' in the '80s.  Enjoy.

01. This Time Tomorrow
02. Turn to Dust
03. Epic
04. Reunion
05. Tales of Adventure
06. Happy Now I Know
07. Reflections (in a coffee cup)*
08. *in the sun

Hear