Promise

There may be more famous debut albums in the world, but on Promise, Gene Loves Jezebel honestly delivered one of the most unsettling, a rock album on the face of it but one working out any number of issues next to which even the contemporaneous Tears for Fears debut The Hurting seemed happy go lucky. With big guitar drama and unusual arrangements underneath Jay and Michael Aston’s piercing voices, everything from Welsh political anger to the stillborn birth of Jay’s daughter serves as inspiration for a set of powerful, extreme songs.