Donovan - Sunshine Superman (1966)

★ ★ ★ ★

On his third long-player Leitch decorates his delicate folk with sitars, tablas, swooning orchestras, and funky psychedelic rock. The songs have a flow of consciousness feel, perhaps less lyrically engaging yet musically somewhat more mature than the song-stories Dylan was dealing in at the time. Released a month after "Revolver", "Sunshine Superman" holds its head proudly among the auspicious company of 1966.

L7 - The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum (1997)

★ ★ ★ ★

This is L7's masterpiece. Its an A-Team style scrap metal tank of an album; huge slabs of garage punk and grunge welded onto quirky noise pop and laquered with pure sludge. Production is just the right side of careless: huge room-destroying drums, super-fat rhythm guitars, squealing Atari-like lead guitars, and Donita and Suzi screaming and gargling like nutters on top. The songs are great too.

Green Day - American Idiot (2004)

★ ★ ★

Here Green Day come to terms with what they have become: punk-esque stadium rock mega-stars; a role which "American Idiot" the album, and the tour embraced with relish. If there is a coherent storyline here (as claimed) it is well hidden, and as far as political commentary goes "American Idiot" offers little more than name-calling. One suspects the sudden spark of rebellion at this album's heart was as much a convenient career-revitalising contrivance as it was a genuine attempt to heal the world. Unforgivable perhaps if the material were less strong. "American Idiot" is a neat package of all the lessons learned from "Nimrod"'s loose-footed sonic adventurism, book-ended by two 9 minute, muti-part "rock opera"s. It all flows together convincingly enough, and the weaker songs are just about good enough to keep the whole show rolling along.

Green Day - Warning (2000)

★ ★ ★

At last the punk rock millionaires come of age. The  key breakthrough here is the realization that Green Day is not really a punk band, and that to pretend that they are is counter-productive. Liberated from proving himself with 2 minute thrash-pop nuggets, Billie Joe turns his distortion pedal down a few notches, and the boys throw a little folk and some moody klezmer into the power-trio melting pot. And it works. The drums bounce, the guitars clang, and the songs once again sound like they were written by a band with a purpose.

Stiltskin - The Mind's Eye (1994)

★ ★

Cynical cash-in, hurriedly cobbled together by hurriedly cobbled together alt-rockers Stiltskin. The Levi's song is here with added gruff Cobain-cum-Bryan Adams vocals from a future ex-Genesis singer. The songwriting isn't bad, but the heavier guitars are overly caustic, making half the album frankly nasty to listen to. The "band" proves itself better suited to the REM-esque pop-rock ballads which make up the better half of this short album.

Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way To Blue (2009)

★ ★ ★

A worthy return, although sadly a victim of the loudness war, making this possibly the loudest, most overly-compressed album released so-far. The result is one motherfucking heavy slab of gothic-grunge-metal. This is not easy listening. This is music which demands to be played fucking loud, or not at all. William DuVall fills Layne Staley's post impressively, and Cantrell's guitar-work and songcraft remain as charismatic as ever. While their recent tour proved that Alice In Chains is still a band well worth paying attention to, "Black Gives Way To Blue" is just too relentless (partly due to the horribly butchered mastering) to be anything more than an occasional listen.

The Damned - Damned Damned Damned (1977)

★ ★ ★

The Damned's debut sprints along like an amphetamine-saturated Monkees, devouring songs and spitting them back out bloodied and spit-drenched. Less formulaic and po-faced than the Pistol's or The Clash's debuts, the band here seems to have become bored with the punk aesthetic already, so alongside the thrashers we are presented with gothic balladry and proto-noise rock. There is a level of musicianship here well beyond the reaches of most 70's punk bands, but its rushed along in such a drugged-out and fucked-up manner that it often sounds like pure chaos. This is real anarchy. The Sex Pistols sound like Staus Quo by comparison.

Danzig - Danzig II: Lucifuge (1990)

★ ★ ★ ★

Although not far removed musically from the debut, that first album's potential is realised fully here. This time around the band sizzles convincingly, while remaining thoroughly listenable, and Danzig throws in some of his old Misfits chorus-pizzazz. This is a genuinely great metal album; rocking AND catchy as hell.

Danzing - Danzig (1988)

★ ★ ★

This is a consistently high quality set, adequately showing off Danzig's heavy metal-Doors sctick. Its a shame that the guitars seem to be set to stun rather than kill. In fact the whole album feels hollow, as though there were an instrument missing. These songs work well individually, but as an album "Danzig" lacks the necessary thrills to hold one's attention through to the end.

Green Day - Insomniac (1995)

★ ★

Even by Green Day's standards this is stripped-down: seemingly reacting to sudden fame by cranking up the amps and rocking out a handful of not particularly carefully written songs, the Berkley pop-punkers are merely treading water here. Quirky tunes like "Brain Stew" and "Panic Song" stand out, but mostly this is just a big brick wall of crunchy power chords. Formulaic punk with nothing new to say.

Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden (1980)

★ ★ ★ ★

Steve Harris and Dave Murray are the only members of what would become Maiden's classic line-up present on this debut, which may account for its punk edge not present on following albums. The songwriting is mostly impeccable, but a slightly thin and ragged production mars what is still a very impressive and fully-realised first effort.