Crass - The Feeding Of The 5000 (1978)

★ ★

This is a difficult listen. It kicks off with the track that was banned from the original vinyl: "Asylum" is an awful militant-Feminist poem preached over guitar feedback. Its ridiculous. From then on its snotty punk all the way with Steve Ignorant spitting out his anarchist manifesto at 3000 mph. Some songs are gratingly simplistic, some are intriguingly creative, demonstrating touches of proto-noise rock and proto-hardcore. Sometimes the lyrics are embarassing, but mostly they are indecipherable. The recording is fairly clean and crisp, but the mix is bad - the drums are LOUD, the guitars are thin. Inconsistent but curious.

Metallica - St. Anger (2003)

★ ★ ★ ★

Much bollocks has been written about this album, please allow me to contribute: First let's establish what "St. Anger" is not; it is not a Nu-Metal bandwagon-jumper, it is not like any Metallica album from the past, it is not polished with magic studio-dust. Bad production? Fuck no. This is molten Lo-Fi metal of a type never before see. Every song lasts for 3 days and is bursting open with brutal muscular riffs and bizarre twists and turns. The snare pings like a rusty oil drum, the kick drum feels like a brick to the face. Its slower than old-school Thrash-Metallica -  but far, far heavier. If "St. Anger" sounds like badly recorded mush to you right now... keep listening. There's genius in here. I'm serious. And it rocks like a bitch too.

Sonic Youth - NYC Ghosts & Flowers (2000)

★ ★ ★

The song title "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" describes this album almost perfectly: delicate off-kilter guitar embroidery decorates vast grey oceans of punkish noise - a noise which pulsates rather than roars. Of course if you're not a fan of this sort of thing you will HATE this album. "NYC Ghosts & Flowers" presents Sonic Youth 20 years into a career spent weaving together bruised yet beautiful alt-rock with krautrock noise and feedback. This 12th effort is a calmer affair than usual - everything sounds semi-improvised and the atmosphere is relentlessly "arty" yet the band somehow steers clear of overt pretensiousness. A little too much reliance on mantric repetition in the vocals can become grating, but in general "Ghosts" succeeds as dreamy/nightmarish punk psychedelia.

Cable - Sub-Lingual (1999)

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I'm biased here, since I am one of a few people who rate Cable as one of the greatest bands that ever lived. Forced to close up shop due to legal / financial / management issues, "Sub-Lingual" is the band's parting shot at an indifferent music industry and an unaware public. Its fucking brilliant. This is the same evolutionary strain which birthed Sonic Youth, The Pixies and Nirvana. Every song is a tightly wound excercise in alt-rock minimalism and noise-rock artiness. Previous Cable releases relied heavily on clashing textures and hypnotic repetition, both of which are present here, but this time we are treated to hooks galore - in fact underneath Darius Hinks's strangled guitar and Richie Millls's algebraic drums, Matt Bagguley's songs are a perfect mesh of intelligent pop and raucous snot-nosed punk. Like S*M*A*S*H with a few extra brain-cells, beautifully recorded, and full of great abstract lyrics - practically perfect in every way.

Iron Maiden - The X Factor (1995)

★ ★

New boy Blaze's deep bellow is slightly difficult to take seriously - he seems almost like a parody of a heavy metal singer, and his performance is bloodlessly one dimensional and unintentionally amusing. The songs are okayish but energy levels seem to be down, though this may be an aesthetic choice: the riffs here are brooding and symphonic opposed to Maiden's usual muscular gallop. Supposedly named "The X Factor" because band and producer felt they were on to a winner. Maybe they were, but Blaze was never up to the job of leading this aging warhorse into battle.

Guns N' Roses - "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)

★ ★

The covers album with which Guns N' Roses Mark 1 ground to a halt. Sometimes it works, and sometimes very much not: Axl's strangled rendering of "Since I've Been Loving You" and faux-cockney drawl on "Down On The Farm" are highlights, but there's too much karaoke going on here. Straight-ahead, un-embelished numbers like "New Rose" and "Human Being" just sound redundant and diminish the occasional truly awesome moments like "Ain't It Fun" and "Black Leather". Production is stark compared with the meticulous detail of "Use Your Illusion", and at times this exposes the GN'R sound to be pretty damn ordinary at its core. There is just too much filler here to award this album a higher score.

Nine Inch Nails - Broken (1992)

★ ★ ★

Essentially a stepping stone between NIN's comparatively pop debut and "The Downward Spiral", Reznor's intentions for the future are made clear here: "Pretty Hate Machine"'s crunchy synth-rock is galvanised with white-hot noise guitar and frantic industrial drums, squeals and belches. "Broken" dives head-first down the rabbit hole, gurgling and convulsing on its way to hell. A little light tune-wise perhaps, and a little less organic than "The Downward Spiral", but it certainly leaves a lasting impression.

Dead Kennedys - In God We Trust, Inc. (1981)

★ ★ ★

8 songs in 14 minutes - Jello and his boys are going for the jugular here. Stupidly fast and aggressive yet tuneful and even catchy, this is hardcore as artform, with social conscience and sense of humour both in full swing. Essentially recorded live, the Kennedys remain convincingly PUNK and yet remain listenable - a feat not matched by many 1980's hardcore bands. To keep things interesting "We've Got A Bigger Problem Now" re-invents "California Über Alles" as demented jazz, and the rocking cover of the theme from Rawhide is glorious.