Released

It’s an idea so ruthlessly brilliant and simple, it’s a shock no one had really thought of it yet: welding together girl group pop and excoriating noise (the Velvet Underground did something other than that, really). And maybe the Reid brothers had to wait until Einstürzende Neubauten existed to really be able to make it happen, but Psychocandy still feels like a revelation, decades later. The surprise of it isn’t just that every song is perfectly formed, or that it’s so melodically rich, or attitudinally spot on; it’s that the album sounds like it was recorded in a sub-zero temperature cave deep underground and it’s still weirdly affecting. The brutish whistle of feedback that blows through most of the songs is a perfect ongoing motif, and it’s still hard to believe two spotty, shy reprobates from Glasgow made this much of a racket so damn compelling.

Jon Dale

Suggestions
Killing Joke cover

Killing Joke

Killing Joke
Tanker cover

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Turn It Around cover

Turn It Around

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Mad! cover

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Llwybr Llaethog
Entropy cover

Entropy

Arcwelder
Cowboys and Angels cover

Cowboys and Angels

Kitchens of Distinction
Sol.Hz cover

Sol.Hz

Seefeel
Mutiny! cover

Mutiny!

The Birthday Party
Waiting for a Miracle cover

Waiting for a Miracle

The Comsat Angels