October just won’t let up. I review nine new albums today and it would’ve 11 if I could’ve gotten my hands on two others I wanted to hear. Regardless, the month’s horn-o-plenty continues to run over and this week I review the latest from Amyl and The Sniffers, Pixies, Naked Roommate, new Tricky project Theis Thaws, Philly power popper 2nd Grade, jazzy group Fievel Is Glauque, Tess Parks, Iceage frontman Elias Rønnenfelt, and One True Pairing (Tom Fleming, ex-Wild Beasts).

Also out today, and maybe I’ll review next week: Underworld’s Strawberry Hotel, and former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci frontman Euros Childs‘ Beehive Beach.

Notable Releases has 11 reviews this week, including Laura Marling, Soccer Mommy, Better Lovers, Buñuel (Oxbow’s Eugene Robinson), and more.

The new One True Pairing album had me pulling out Wild Beasts’ 2009 album Two Dancers for this week’s Indie Basement Classic.

It was a busy week for news, too: LCD Soundsystem are gonna release their first album in eight years; Til Tuesday (yes, with Aimee Mann) are getting back together for Cruel World 2025 (and hopefully other shows); and Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee is finally on Bandcamp (and soon to vinyl/CD).

Plus: Air’s Moon Safari tour is one of the most fully realized audio-visual spectacles I’ve ever seen (no I haven’t been to the Sphere).

That’s enough intro for this week. Head below for a whole mess of reviews.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Amyl and the Sniffers – Cartoon Darkness (B2B Records / Virgin Music Group)
The third album from Amyl finds them stretching their wings for their most varied and best record yet

Amyl and the Sniffers have lost none of their sass or snarl, but they do take the foot off the gas, occasionally, on their third album which is their best yet. I reviewed Cartoon Darkness elsewhere on the site but here’s an excerpt:

Amy Taylor comes out swinging on Amyl and The Sniffers’ third album and her opponents are many, though they all have one thing in common — they’re all trying to bring her down. In the case of “Jerkin‘,” it’s Twitter trolls and reply guys who Taylor quickly puts in their place: “Keep jerkin’ on your squirter / You will never get with me!” (It’s not necessarily just about dudes; Taylor happily notes that almost everyone has a “squirter.”) On Cartoon Darkness, she’s also fighting Big Tech, AI, music industry executives, and all manner of icky men who she attacks with caustic wit, fiery delivery and a crack band who are still delivering the pile-drivers and barn-burners Amyl are known for, while switching things up a little, too.

Read the full review here.

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Pixies – The Night the Zombies Came (BMG)
Back from the dead: A new bassist brings new life to these indie lifers; it’s no ‘Doolittle’ but what is?

Pixies have now made as many albums in the last 10 years as they did in their original six year run, and if none of the 2000s-on albums are as good as the ones on 4AD with Kim Deal, the band (Black Francis, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering) have settled into a comfortable style that recalls their heyday but reflects their age with a gentler style. The Night the Zombies Came is the Pixies 10th album and first with new bassist Emma Richardson (ex-Band of Skulls), and the change seems to have invigorated the band. Also changed them just a little. Richardson’s most obvious contribution to the record is not the bass but her backing vocals. She sings on nearly every song and is featured prominently, moreso than Kim Deal ever was, even if she never takes lead. Her voice sounds great with Black Francis’ and makes this album distinct in the band’s discography, though it makes it a little less Pixies-ish. (The difference between a Pixies album and a Frank Black solo album these days seems to be name only.) Still, we get the surfy, tremolo’d guitar, sci-fi lyrics and driving basslines we associate with the band, Black Francis sounds like he’s having fun this time, and the songs are pretty good — especially the album’s delightful, Phil Spector-esque title track. To further the zombie theme, an alternate title for this album might be Pixies: Back from the Dead.

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Naked Roommate – Pass the Loofah (Trouble in Mind)
San Francisco electro-party post-punks have offered horns their spare room on Album #2

It’s been four years since we last heard from Naked Roommate, the San Francisco party-forward, arty-forward post-punks that spun off of underheard DIY indie band The World. Since their debut, Do the Duvet (an apartment humor reference to A Certain Ratio), they’ve welcomed a few more roommates, including a horn section and a percussion/marimba player which have really expanded their abilities to get you moving. New album Pass the Loofah still hits at angles with icy cool, but the saxophones and mallet instruments bring welcoming warmth. It’s all very cosmopolitan, somewhere between pre-“Don’t You Want Me” Human League and ZE Records (Kid Creole, Lizzy Mercier Descloux), but in a decidedly West Coast sort of way. While funky basslines, vintage drum machines and synths are at the heart of what they do, songs like “Fight Flight,” “Broken Whisper” and “Reasons Why” grow and grow and get wild by the end, like any good house party. You may wake up the next morning to nothing left in your fridge and all the knobs on your stove missing, but you’ll think, “worth it.”

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2nd Grade – Scheduled Explosions (Double Double Whammy)
Peter Gill fits a double album’s worth of hooks into a mini-LP’s length on his latest 2nd Grade pop opus

I don’t know about you but when I see an album with 20 or more tracks I can feel my finger move away from the Play button. Scheduled Explosions, the latest album from Philly’s Peter Gill who records as 2nd Grade, has 23 songs. Oof! But not so fast. Or very fast. With songs averaging a minute and a half, the album comes in at only 38 minutes. To compare, The Cure’s Songs of a Lost World is nine songs at 49 minutes, and the previous 2nd Grade album had 16 songs at 35 minutes. He is cutting the fat and tightening the belt at every opportunity. Brevity is a signature of power pop, and Gill crams these tasty morsels with hooks, riffs, and choruses that you wouldn’t think could fit into these fun-sized bites. He also crams them with pop culture references, clever wordplay, and trippy imagery. (Fans of early dB’s, especially Chris Stamey’s songs, and Game Theory, take note.) Part of me wonders what Green would do with better equipment or a bigger budget, but he’s doing fine just as he is. Carry on, sir.

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Fievel Is Glauque – Rong Weicknes (Fat Possum)
This American/Belgian jazzy duo who’ve toured with Stereolab expand their sound for their first album on big indie Fat Possum

At the core a duo of American musician Zach Phillips and Belgian singer Ma Clément, jazzy group Fievel is Glauque took a big swing on their first album for Fat Possum, recorded as an eight-piece, “live in triplicate.” What does “live in triplicate” mean? It involves “First laying down a foundational take, then a duplicate take on top of it, and finally an improvisatory, antagonistic take,” and then “the octet exclusively played live together without using a click track, so that each layer of performance features tiny rhythmic variations and imperfections, both intentional and not.” It’s a heady concept and as a person who can barely strum basic chords and sing at the same time, the nuances of this process are beyond me, but Rong Weicknes is pretty easy to enjoy, especially if you’re a fan of ’60s tropicalia or Stereolab (who Fievel is Glauque have toured with). The songs are light on their feet, which is helpful given the complicated, nimble moves on display. Bobbing synths and echoing vocals meet jazzy chord shifts, fluttering horns and woodwinds, textured bass and percussion. Under all that, and three layers of takes, are some wonderful, breezy pop songs.

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Theis Thaws (Tricky) – Fifteen Days (False Idols)
The trip-hop icon teams with French producer Michaël Theis for one of his most straightforward, fleshed-out, clubby albums in years

Tricky (Adrian Thaws) has been on a hot streak since launching his own False Idols label in 2013, releasing records almost yearly, though some of them he serves mainly as a producer, like on last year’s album by Marta who had appeared on a few of his records (and sounds a lot like former muse/partner Martina Topley-Bird). Even on recent records bearing his own name, Tricky has tended to stay in the shadows, letting guests vocalists shine while he whispers and lurks in the background. Not so with new project Theis Thaws, a collaboration with Parisian producer and Yuk-Fü Records founder Michaël Theis where Tricky’s ever-blunted vocals are primarily in the spotlight. There are guest vocalists on their debut album, of course — female voices always bring out the best in Tricky, and he gives lyricist and new False Idols signing Run Red Rambo a chance to shine on “Good and I’m Not” — but he is very much the focus here. Fifteen Days (its title is the time it took to make it) also might be the most straightforward, clubby record Tricky has ever made, full of four-on-the-floor beats, jungle amen breaks, and songs with actual choruses. Chilled out beats do rear their head a couple times but “Machine,” “Frozen Rivers,” and the awesome “Fly to the Ceiling” (and its even better David Holmes remix) are built for the dancefloor.

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Tess Parks – Pomegranate (Fuzz Club)
Third proper solo album from this Canadian singer-songwriter is her most fully realized record yet

Canadian singer-songwriter Tess Parks, who lives in London these days, says her third solo album was not easy to make. “Look – there’s so much tragedy happening in the world right now. It’s so easy to feel helpless. It feels self-indulgent to be someone singing at all from their own perspective,” Parks says. “But if anything, this album is a gift of love, our contribution to the world of something beautiful that we made amongst so much pain. It’s our message of empowerment to keep going even when life feels unliveable and unjust – having faith that this moment will pass if you can find a way to just breathe into the next moment.” Made with close collaborator Ruari Meehan (son of The Shadows drummer Tony Meehan), Pomegranate mixes warm psych with her smoky, sometimes sinister vocal style and it’s an appealing combination. We’re still in the same ballpark as her two albums with The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe, but “California’s Dreaming,” “Lemon Poppy,” “Crown Shy” (featuring the distinctive whistling of Molly Lewis) and others are lush and inviting, colored in with strings, flutes and lots of cool vintage organs. “Ruari and I really tried to channel this music into something that sounds like now,” Tess says, “but ‘all-the-time’ now — something eternal that will hopefully always sound like ‘now’.” I can dig it, and mission accomplished.

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Elias Rønnenfelt – Heavy Glory (Escho)
The Iceage frontman’s swaggering first solo album under his own name feels like what his voice was always meant for

While Iceage frontman Elias Rønnenfelt has released a couple (very good) solo albums under the banner of Marching Church, Heavy Glory is his first record under his own name. He’s always pulled inspiration from The Birthday Party and its diaspora (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, These Immortal Souls, Crime and the City Solution, etc), and the swaggering, swarthy, mostly acoustic songs here feel especially indebted to Rowland S Howard and Nikki Sudden. It’s a natural progression for Elias and his voice was destined for songs like “Doomsday Childsplay,” “Another Round,” and “Soldier Song” (a duet with Dean Blunt collaborator Joanne Robertson). Marching Church hinted at arrangements like this, but he’s fully commited now. Heavy Glory ends with two covers: Spacemen 3’s “Sound of Confusion,” which starts folky and end in white noise, and Townes Van Zandt’s “No Place to Fall” which sends the album out on the sound of swelling strings and seagulls. I hope there are still Iceage records to come — 2021’s Seek Shelter was terrific — but Heavy Glory feels like home for him.

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One True Pairing – Endless Rain (Domino)
Tom Fleming (ex-Wild Beasts) borrows Lankum’s producer and violinist for his warm, earthy second album as One True Pairing

Wild Beasts have been split for six years but their two creative forces still seem to be in sync with each other. Hayden Thorpe released Ness back in September, and now here’s his former partner, Tom Fleming, with his second album as One True Pairing. Fleming is a more grounded songwriter, musician and vocalist than the decidedly arty, falsetto-loving Thorpe, but he’s still decidedly left of center on Endless Rain, a record that sounds like sitting by a fireplace after being out in a torrential storm. Where his One True Pairing debut was largely electronic, this one relies on traditional instruments. Fleming made the album at Dublin’s Hellfire studios with John ‘Spud’ Murphy, who is known for working with Lankum, and you can feel some of that same mossy, earthy vibe here as violins drone eerily through many of these folky songs. (Lankum’s Cormac Mac Diarmada provides those strings, btw.) Fleming’s rich baritone is a natural for this sonic world, even if he’s never made a record like this before, and the songs are terrific. Don’t wait for a rainy day to listen to this one.

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (Domino, 2009)
With new solo albums from Wild Beasts’ Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming out now, let’s look back at the band’s 2009 mercurial, magical second album.

Wild Beasts, who were together from 2002 – 2018, found magic in the interplay between its four members who were more than the sum of their parts and on their best records they worked as one slithering unit. Hayden Thorpe (otherworldly falsetto) and Tom Fleming (baritone) traded off vocal parts, as well as bass and guitar duties, and were intertwined like twins. The rest of the band was just as important: Ben Little wove atmospheric tapestries with his lead guitar, and drummer Chris Talbot (the band’s secret weapon) gave songs a tribal feel, favoring toms over cymbals. They always reminded me of a cross between ’80s art-pop band The Associates and post-punks The Chameleons. Two Dancers is Wild Beasts’ second album and where everything gelled into a lush, lusty, neon rainforest full of hooting, howling, carnal delights and great song after great song. This was my #1 album of 2009 (how is it 15 years old?), and I still hear something new every time I listen to it.

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Creation Records’ 21 Best Records

21. Biff Bang Pow! – Oblivion (1987)

Alan McGee wasn't just the head of Creation Records, he was also one its musical artists, involved in a few projects over the years, including Laughing Apple, Revolving Paint Dream and his longest-running group, Biff Bang Pow! that also featured, at various points, label co-founders Dick Green and Joe Foster, as well as Primal Scream's Andrew Innes. Oblivion, the second of two albums Biff Bang Pow! released in 1987, is the group's best record, full of the sort of jangly pastiche psychedelia you'd expect from a band that, like his label, were named after '60s beat group The Creation. McGee's a better songwriter than he is a singer but his fey vocal style works just fine on terrifically titled tracks like "A Girl Called Destruction," "The Only Colour in the World is Love" and "She's Got Diamonds in Her Hair." The band's other 1987 album, The Girl Who Runs the Beat Hotel, is worth checking out too and contains the band's best-ever single, the Andrew Innes-sung "Someone Stole My Wheels."

20. Various Artists – Creation Soup Vol 1-5 (1990)

Most people associate Creation Records with their '90s heyday of Oasis, Primal Scream, Ride, Super Furry Animals and My Bloody Valentine, but the label's first five years were full of singles from jangly, '60s-inspired bands who most people have probably never heard of, most of which were only released on 7". In 1990 Creation gathered them all up for a five volume CD set. McGee notes that "The first twenty came in hand folded sleeves which Joe Foster and I used to stay up and fold all night four or five times a week." They include great early singles by Primal Scream, Felt, The Loft, The Weather Prophets, The Jasmine Minks, The Pastels, House of Love, Biff Bang Pow!, The Bodines, and more. Noticeably absent from these, though, is the label's breakthrough -- The Jesus & Mary Chain's 1984 debut single "Upside Down" (due to rights issues). Creation Soup is still a fascinating look at the formative years of a label that would become an indie powerhouse.

19. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Munki (1998)

The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1984 debut single, "Upside Down," turned the UK indie scene upside down with its then-novel approach of taking a Phil Spector-eque pop song and wrapping it in pummeling noise and feedback. It also put Creation Records on the map, paving the way for House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, Ride and many more of the label's most famous groups. JAMC made the leap to Warner Bros immediately after this single but Creation founder Alan McGee stayed the band's manager, and JAMC quickly became alt-rock stars. By the late-'90s, though, Jim and William Reid felt chewed up and spit out by the music industry and weren't getting along with each other so well, either. If Warner had lost interest in the band after five albums, McGee had not, and welcomed the Reids back to Creation with open arms. Bookended by the supercatchy "I Love Rock N' Roll" and tinnitus-inducing "I Hate Rock N' Roll," the sprawling, 17-track Munki plays like a career retrospective, including buzzsaw pop, semi-acoustic numbers, duets with Hope Sandoval, and dissonant noise jams. Munki served as a great final word on the JAMC...till they reformed and made a new album 19 years later.

18. The Loft – One Round the Fair (1989) / The Weather Prophets – Diesel River (1988)

You can't really tell the story of Creation Records without including Peter Astor, the label's first shining star, who wrote charming, literate songs with his Television/VU-esque bands The Loft and The Weather Prophets. (The Loft's original name was The Living Room, which was also the name of Alan McGee's pre-Creation London club night; Astor changed it to avoid confusion.) Astor also had a face meant for magazine covers, as well as a fine if not exceptional Tom Verlaine-esque voice that probably kept his groups from crossing over into more mainstream success. Not that Creation Records' Alan McGee didn't try. The Loft broke up before making a full length record but their excellent singles "Why Does the Rain" (which Astor recorded with The Weather Prophets, too) and "Up the Hill and Down the Slope" are among Creation's best early singles and, along with the b-sides, make up compilation Once Round The Fair. Astor and Loft bandmate Dave Morgan formed The Weather Prophets who continued in much the same direction, releasing three albums that never quite captured the magic of the band's Creation singles, most of which are collected on Diesel River (though your best bet is 2004 best-of comp Blue Skies & Free-Rides).

17. Adorable – Against Perfection (1993)

Making their debut with the undeniable "Sunshine Smile," Adorable were initially lumped in with the shoegaze scene, because almost everything on Creation in 1992 was kinda shoegaze, but the band were closer in spirit to House of Love's textured, romantic pop than My Bloody Valentine or Swervedriver. They owed a lot to the Pixies and The Wedding Present, too, held Echo & The Bunnymen in the highest regard, and Fijalkowski had no shortage of big hooks and mile-wide choruses in his arsenal. Their debut album, Against Perfection, is one of the great, underrated UK indie records of the early '90s, jam-packed with memorable melodies, roaring/chiming guitars, clever/heartfelt lyrics and lots of swagger. The American release, via SBK records, betters the UK version by adding "Sunshine Smile" and another early single, "I'll Be Your Saint," alongside killer album cuts like "A to Fade In," "Homeboy," "Favorite Fallen Idol" and "Still Life."

16. The Jazz Butcher – Fishcotheque (1988)

With the Jazz Butcher's mid-'80s albums for Glass Records, which featured a band that included bassist (and ex Bauhaus member) David J, The Jazz Butcher (Pat Fish) had gained the reputation for whimsical indie a la Robyn Hitchcock. Signing to Creation, Pat started a new version of the group with collaborator Kizzy O'Callahan, intent on changing his image. That makeover began with 1988's Fishcotheque, one of his best albums that showed a new, more serious side to The Jazz Butcher. "I was keen to get as far away from all those 'w, words that had followed my group around," Fish wrote later of the album, "to make it as clear as I could that this was a rock & roll thing, not some 'eccentricity.' I had my shades and I had my fringed suede jacket and I had the Weather Prophets rhythm section." Witty without being wacky, Fishcotheque is loaded with great songs, including the punky "Looking for Lot 49," the wistful "Swell" and "The Next Move Sideways," terrific pop number "Let's Get it Wrong," and one of his best-ever songs, "Susie," which features Sonic Boom on feedback. Pat didn't entirely abandon his "w" side, though, which rears its head on "Living in a Village" and vegan rap song "The Best Way" (which isn't as kooky as it may seem).

15. Momus – The Tender Pervert (1988)

Named after the Greek god of satire and mockery, Momus (aka Scottish artist Nic Currie) was Creation's most idiosyncratic artist on record*, writing almost exclusively about sex and death but in a high-minded style that was likely to quote the bible or ancient literature, and playing in a style somewhere between Donovan and Jacques Brel. (Most eccentric in real life: Felt's Lawrence.) As the '80s went on, Currie would incorporate Pet Shop Boys-style synthpop into the Momus sound. The Tender Pervert was his first real flirtation with drum machines, and was a deeply twisted, angry record fueled by disgust with Margaret Thatcher's response to the AIDS crisis. "I'm so furious about this that I decide that, if gay people are not only dying but being gagged by the government while dying, it's up to straight people to promote homosexuality in their place," Currie wrote reflecting on the record. Momus is at the height of his witty, erudite powers here on tracks like "The Angels Are Voyeurs," "The Homosexual," "A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy (Parts 17-24)" and the elegant, complex "Bishonen." Currie is not wrong when he writes that The Tender Pervert is "my best and most definitive album" -- it's also the best place to start for this artist who is definitely an acquired taste.

14. Swervedriver – Ejector Seat Reservation (1995)

Swervedriver were one of the best groups of the original shoegaze era, but by 1995 interest in the genre in their home country (and label, Creation) had fully moved on to Britpop. Unlike some bands (Ride, Lush), Swervedriver stuck to their guitar pedals while trying to expand upon their sound with their third album, Ejector Seat Reservation. It was still heavy, but there was an equal emphasis on melody and maelstrom, adding elements of Bowie and Bolan to the mix, not to mention a string and horn section. It's Swervedriver's best album and loaded with memorable songs, including pile-driver "Bring Me the Head of the Fortune Teller," the poppy/heavy "The Other Jesus," elegant first single "Last Day on Earth," and soaring closing cut "To the Birds." Unfortunately there was no time to celebrate: Creation Records dropped Swervedriver the week after Ejector Seat Reservation was released and deleted the album from their catalog, making it for years the band's hardest-to-find album.

13. Saint Etienne – Good Humor (1997)

Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs formed Saint Etienne in 1990 as a way to mix their obsession with '60s and '70s pop, R&B, soul and reggae with the indie dance and rave culture that had taken over the UK at the time. They originally envisioned the group as having a different vocalist for every single, but that changed when they met Sarah Cracknell, and Saint Etienne became a trio. After three albums of sample-based dance pop, Saint Etienne changed course, and decamped to Malmo, Sweden to make a full-band album with Cardigans producer Tore Johannsen at his famed Tambourine Studios. Armed with a group of crack session musicians, Good Humor is unlike any other record in Saint Etienne's catalog before or since, working in elements of exotica, acid jazz and Beach Boys/Phil Spector wall of sound pop. While Saint Etienne's previous albums had been released by Heavenly Recordings through Creation, Good Humor was the first -- and last -- to be released by Creation proper. Singles "Sylvie" and "The Bad Photographer" were both Top 30 UK hits and Good Humor remains Saint Etienne's biggest seller in the US (where it was released by Sub Pop).

12. The Boo Radleys – Giant Steps (1993)

Liverpool band The Boo Radleys began as one of the noisiest of the '90s shoegazers, with some songs on their 1991 Creation debut, Everything's Alright Forever, sounding like a garbage truck in a rockslide. But deep down, guitarist Martin Carr was a lover of the classics -- The Beatles, Kinks and other late-'60s psychedelic pop -- and that side of him was ready to emerge. The watershed moment was the title track of 1992's Lazarus EP which took a roaring, anthemic melody and built it up slowly with an extended, dubbed-out intro. It's one of their best-ever tracks. "Lazarus" turned out to be the first taste of what would be their magnum opus -- the boundary pushing, Coltrane-referencing, appropriately named third album, Giant Steps. Noise and hazy effects still rang through songs like "I Hang Suspended," "Butterfly McQueen," "Rodney King - Song for Lenny Bruce" and "Take the Time Around," but nothing was obscuring the massive hooks Carr loaded the songs with. There were also just straight-up pop songs like "Wishin' I Was Skinny," "Barney and Me," and "If You Want it, Take It." It's a record that, in its own way, is every bit as ambitious as Screamadelica or Loveless, and one that opened Creation's door for Britpop's coming surge. "I felt that everything was moving towards this big pop thing," Carr says in David Cavanagh's The Creation Records Story. "Loads of bands -- young bands with guitars -- were getting into the charts. Blur were getting there. Suede were having hits. We didn’t sell that many records with Giant Steps but everyone was dying to see what we were going to do next." Next would net them a massive UK hit single -- 1995's "Wake Up Boo!" -- but Giant Steps is still their finest hour.

11. Super Furry Animals – Radiator (1997)

Oasis may have been Creation's biggest selling act of the '90s (by a mile) but, pound for pound, Super Furry Animals were probably the best. The band were proudly Welsh, not afraid to sing in their native tongue, and wildly creative, with a wide anarchic streak. Their terrific 1996 debut album, Fuzzy Logic, paid tribute to Welsh drug smuggler (and national hero) Howard Marks both on the cover art and on song "Hanging With Howard Marks," and the same year they released single "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" which sampled Steely Dan and held the record, at 50 utterances, for most "fucks" given in a song (till Insane Clown Posse's "Fuck the World" beat it in 1999). Just a year later, SFA were back with Radiator, a record that was leaps and bounds better than their debut, and where they went from being a lot of fun to one of the more consistently great, wildly creative bands of the era. (They still are.) Radiator incorporates Madchester-y shuffle ("Play it Cool," "The Placid Casual"), Bowie-style spacerock ("Demons," "Bass tuned to DEAD"), punk, and mutant pop ("Herman Loves Pauline") into a style that became distinctly their own.

10. Slowdive – Souvlaki (1993)

Influenced by the Cocteau Twins' ethereal style, not to mention The Jesus and Mary Chain and probably a fair amount of goth, Pink Floyd and prog, Slowdive didn’t really sound like any other group from the original shoegaze era, riding a massive wave of shimmering guitars that were at times so transformed by effects pedals, they resembled synthesizers. Like their early EPs, the band's debut album, Just for a Day, was hypnotic and sensuous, wrapping listeners in layer upon layer of gorgeous haze, but it was maybe a little lacking in focus and A-level material. Not a problem with their sophomore album that nestles memorable songs and a stronger rhythmic backbone into their signature aural cloudwork. Their best album to date, Souvlaki features some of their catchiest songs ("Alison," "When the Sun Hits," "40 Days") with muscular material like "Machine Gun," vivid trip-out "Yellow Melon" and two songs ( "Sing," "Here She Comes") featuring keyboards and treatments by Brian Eno. Best of all, though, is "Souvlaki Space Station" which takes their spiraling sound deep into dub territory. Never as popular at the time as their shoegaze contemporaries Ride or Lush, Slowdive's records have aged better than most things from the '90s, and the group have led one of the most satisfying second acts in recent memory.

9. Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix (1995)

Teenage Fanclub's third album, Bandwagonesque, is one of the three pillars in Creation's 1991 crown (the other two are slightly higher up on this list), and an album that, along with Ride's Nowhere, helped the label realize its place as a home for classic guitar pop done in new and exciting ways, or at least by new and exciting groups. What Teenage Fanclub did wasn't exactly new -- they drank deep from the well of Big Star and Dinosaur Jr. -- but they did it very well and had three three talented singer-songwriters who had yet to reach their creative potential. That hit with 1995's Grand Prix that, to carry on the Formula One racing theme, had Norman Blake, Gerrard Love and Raymond McGinley firing on all cylinders, with such instant earworms as "Sparky's Dream," "Neil Jung," "Mellow Doubt," "Verisimilitude," and "Don't Look Back." The album was also released at the height of Britpop and pulled the Fannies into that orbit, even though they were never really part of that scene. While they may not equal Oasis in the ambition and swagger department, Grand Prix delivers just as many classics as (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, just in a more humble way.

8. Sugar – Copper Blue (1992)

Spoiler alert: this is the only American-made album on this list. Creation did release a few records by U.S. acts (Medicine, Guided by Voices, The Cramps) but not many, and most were more licensing deals than actual signings. But Bob Mould put together separate deals with Creation in the UK and Rykodisc in North America for his new band Sugar who rivaled MBV for being loudest-ever group on the label. With their roaring, punk-injected guitar pop sound, the trio (Mould, bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis) were definitely a more natural fit with a label of noisemakers like Creation than Rykodisc (who were mainly known for being the first CD-only label). In any case, Sugar's classic debut album is one of 1992's best, and one of the greatest albums Creation Records released, with Mould's signature mix of rippers ("Changes," "A Good Idea") and pop songs ("Helpless," "If I Can't Change Your Mind") and even a little prog ("Hoover Dam"). Copper Blue was actually more of a hit across the pond first, reaching #10 in the UK album charts and with NME naming it the Best Album of 1992; the record really caught on with American alt-rock radio and MTV in 1993. Sugar burned bright and hot, releasing Beaster a mere six months later, yet flamed out during sessions for their second album. Still, Copper Blue remains one of Mould's best collection of songs.

7. Felt – Forever Breathes the Lonely Word (1986)

Led by the decidedly eccentric but frequently brilliant Lawrence Hayward who was prone to 2 AM vacuuming and still only goes by his first name, Felt set out to release 10 albums and 10 singles in 10 years -- "In and out in a decade," he put it. He accomplished his goal, making crystalline guitar pop that owed much to Tom Verlaine (and just a little to Bob Dylan) with two sharply defined eras of the band. Felt's first four albums were on Cherry Red and featured guitarist Maurice Deebank's distinctive arpeggiated guitar style; the second began with the group's move to Creation, with Deebank out and keyboardist Martin Duffy in, adding wonderful, rich organ to the band's sound. Forever Breathes the Lonely Word was Felt's first album for Creation and is Felt's masterwork, with shimmering production, Lawrence at his most lyrically romantic, and Duffy's brilliant playing all over it. It's just great song after great song, including "Rain of Crystal Spires," "Down But Not Out," "All The People I Like And Those That Are Dead," and "A Wave Crashed on the Rocks," being particular highlights. Creation's first great album.

6. Ride – Nowhere (1990)

Oxford's Ride released their debut album in 1990 and perfectly split Creation Records' two decades in existence down the middle. The band were clearly a product of the student indie scene that Creation was at the center of, owing much to House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain and early Primal Scream, but they were a half step generation younger, savvy, and ambitious. You could easily imagine songs like "Seagull" and "Kaleidoscope" being released with thinner production by the label just a couple years earlier, but Ride were not a group who just wanted to play to 150 people the rest of their lives. While undeniably part of the psychedelic shoegaze scene -- they remain of the genre's most iconic bands -- Andy Bell and Mark Gardner were great songwriters, too, and underneath Nowhere's beautiful murk, haze and feedback is some serious musicianship and craft. Nowhere owes as much to The Byrds as it does MBV and is loaded with great tunes, as can be heard on the undeniable classic "Vapour Trail" -- perhaps the greatest song to come out on Creation Records and not get released as a single. Ride would get more ambitious (and pop-savvy) on 1992's excellent Going Blank Again, and would make a grab for the Britpop ring on 1994's Carnival of Light, but Nowhere is the sound of a scene and a label at the dawn of the '90s.

5. House of Love – House of Love (1988)

While The Jesus & Mary Chain's "Upside Down" put Creation Records on the map, The House of Love's debut album was the first album released by the label that really registered shockwaves beyond the indie charts. Led by Guy Chadwick, whose deep voice matched his high cheekbones, House of Love had some of JAMC's squall but fed it through Chadwick's graceful songwriting and guitarist Terry Bickers' inventive playing. Opening salvo "Christine" is such a stunner, from the roaring guitars to the "Bah bah be dah dah" hook, if the rest of the album had been a dud it still might've made this list. But House of Love is all hits, from the dark, sexy cool of "Road" and "Hope" to the riff-heavy "Sulfur" and "Salome" to the ethereal grandeur of "Man to Child," and the album's second best song, "Love in a Car." The album was also as big an influence on the burgeoning shoegaze scene as My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything, and it's hard to imagine groups like Ride and Catherine Wheel existing without House of Love.

4. Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

As Andy Bell of Ride, who would end up joining Oasis by the end of the '90s, told us, Oasis "were the band Creation had been waiting for, and I think the label was also exactly what the band needed." Oasis fit Creation head Alan McGee's rock n' roll ethos, ticking every box possible with a cup-runneth-over mix of attitude, razor-sharp wit, hedonistic joie-de-vivre and arrogance. It might've all been too much if Noel Gallagher wasn't a one-man hit factory, losing songs in the couch that were better than many bands wrote in their whole career. They were definitely the guitar band McGee had always wanted, turning out singles like his '60s and '70s heroes, but putting a fresh face on them just in time to lead in the new Britpop movement that pushed grunge out of the country much like the USA had done to the King's army some 200+ years before. While 1994's Definitely Maybe was a fantastic debut, Oasis managed to follow it up just a year later with an even better album, one of the best of 1995 and without a doubt the peak of Gallaghers' powers. (What's the Story) Morning Glory? even managed to be a hit in America, something a British rock band hadn't done in years. The album is filthy with classics, from singles like "Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger," "Champagne Supernova," and "Roll With It" to deep cuts like "Cast No Shadow," and "She's Electric." While Oasis stayed popular throughout their existence, creatively, it was diminishing returns after this -- but in 1995 the band could do no wrong.

3. My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything (1988)

If Loveless was the sound of "how'd they do that?," Isn't Anything was the sound of "I wanna do that!" It's hard to imagine Ride, Swervedriver, The Boo Radleys or any of the rest of the soon-to-erupt shoegaze scene -- or half the indie rock of the '90s -- happening the way it did without the visceral impact of My Bloody Valentine's first album for Creation. Songs like "(When You Wake (You're Still in a Dream," "Feed Me With Your Kiss" and "Sueisfine" hit like a brick and sound like you've already been knocked senseless. Kevin Shield's glide guitar sound -- a unique mix of tuning and playing style -- was mysterious, instantly distinctive and deceptively attainable. The band used less effects pedals than most people thought. "The sound is purely physical," MBV Svengali Kevin Shields said at the time. "It's movement, a manual moving of the string: the short travel of he Jazzmaster and Jaguar tremolo that gives it that characteristic sort of upwards drone to the chord." My Bloody Valentine even managed to make acoustic guitars seem heavy ("Come Cupid") and the band's more ethereal tracks like "Lose My Breath" were aptly named. The album has a reputation for thin, tinny sonics, but Kevin Shields' all-analog 2018 remastered edition really shows what a gorgeous monster it is.

2. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)

A record so monumentally important to popular music it's all but impossible to overstate its importance, Loveless is a bonafide classic. It's also a record that took forever and somewhere around £250,000 to complete, that nearly bankrupted Creation, forcing the label to drop the band shortly after Loveless' release, and sell 49% of its stake to Sony Music. ("Overdue" and "over budget," meanwhile, are words associated with the band to this day.) Even though countless artists have stolen from Kevin Shields' signature "glide guitar" style, what the band get from their instruments on Loveless still sounds like nothing else. The four dry snare hits that open the album do not prepare you for the sludgy, white-dwarf heavy riff of opener "Only Shallow," or when the song shifts into pure beauty and back again. Moments like that happen throughout Loveless, from the ethereal slipstream of "To Here Knows When" to the poppy indie rock of "When You Sleep," to the dreamy, danceable perfection of "Soon." So many rock critic cliches and adjectives were created -- and wore out their welcome -- with folks trying to describe Loveless, yet you can't not be in awe 30 years on. It nearly destroyed the label but has always stood as one of its finest moments.

1. Primal Scream – Screamadelica (1991)

Led by gangly, cocksure Bobby Gillespie (who was The Jesus & Mary Chain's original drummer and grew up with Creation boss Alan McGee), Primal Scream were Creation Records' longest-running band, having released their debut single, "All Fall Down" on the label in 1985, and XTRMNTR in 2000, the last album released by the label before it dissolved. Like McGee, Gillespie seemed to live and breathe rock n' roll and he and his bandmates, including the invaluable Andrew Innes, at times managed to stay cool purely on attitude while releasing less-than-stellar early records. Things for them changed, though, when they gave their lackluster, Stonesy single "I'm Losing More Than I Ever Had" to DJ Andrew Weatherall to remix. He took out almost all the vocals, threw a beat under it and added a sample of Peter Fonda From The Wild Angels yelling "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do! We wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time!" Released in February 1990, "Loaded" was one of the cornerstones of the acid house/Madchester scene and forever changed Primal Scream's trajectory. They spent nearly two years on one continuous party, working with Weatherall, Jah Wobble, Stones producer Jimmy Miller -- whatever suited their fancy and vibe -- and releasing singles along the way which would eventually be collected as the era-defining Screamadelica. It shouldn't have worked, but that sense of freedom made it come together beautifully. "Instead of having two guitars, bass, drums, vocals... we destroyed that," Gillespie said in The Creation Records Story. "It was anything goes - synth, tabla, drum machine, no vocals, instrumentals, gospel singers, sitars. The whole range of anything goes noises and suddenly the band were freed. It was a much looser approach to making music. And then getting people like Andy and Hugo, and Alex Patterson and Thrash from The Orb, Jimmy Miller, Wobble, you know – these people, Messing with our music, taking it somewhere else, making it more interstellar, as far out as… It was incredible. The greatest time." You still feel that listening to Screamadelica, too.