Happy November and thankfully it’s the end to the October new release onslaught. Just kidding! The music industry is still dumping out records like its an estate sale and this week I review nine, including: the first Drop Nineteens album in 30 years; the second album of 2023 from London’s bar italia; the guest-filled debut from supergroup Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee, plus Spiritual Cramp, Hotline TNT, The Embassy, Matmos (on Smithsonian Folkways), Old Fire, and a Jockstrap remix album.

Meanwhile, Andrew reviews 11 albums in Notable Releases including Empty Country (ex-Cymbals Eat Guitars), Marnie Stern and Laura Veirs.

Need a catch-up on what came out in October? I review the month’s best songs and albums.

Let’s not waste any more time, head below for this week’s reviews…

ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: Drop Nineteens – Hard Light (Wharf Cat)
Boston shoegaze cult band’s first album in 30 years is… their best yet?

These days almost no reunion is surprising, but when Drop Nineteens announced last year that they were not only getting back together but were also working on their first album in 30 years, the sound of 40-and-50-something music nerd jaws hitting the floor could be heard in used record stores around the world. The Boston band, one of the few credible US shoegazers during the genre’s original era, were only together for a few years, during which they made two albums and a few singles/EPs. One of those albums, 1992’s Delaware, is an underrated classic but Drop Nineteens never busted out beyond college radio the way their UK brethren did. The very definition of a cult band.

Yet here we are, with the classic lineup of the band — singer/guitarists Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley, plus bassist Steve Zimmerman, guitarist Motohiro Yasue, and drummer Peter Koeplin — all back, which is amazing in and of itself, as most of the members stopped playing in bands or making records in the ’90s. That makes Hard Light all the more remarkable as it’s a genuinely terrific record, no qualifiers needed, one that nods to the past but isn’t beholden to it. Ackell and co are still in love with the sound of guitars and the album is filthy with them as you’d expect from a band with three guitarists. They’re sometimes hazy, sometimes clear and crisp, sometimes noisy, often beautiful. Hard Light is easily the best sounding Drop Nineteens album and if it lacks the youthful exuberance of Delaware, the love and command of their instruments is still there and, dare I say it, the songs are better with not a dud in the bunch.

Some of the best songs are strikingly modern, too: “The Price Was High,” sung by by Kelley, has a slinky cool that Drop Nineteens never attempted during their original run; “Lookout” is delicate and sweet; and “Gal” is all swaying beauty with so many sounds you’re not quite sure what’s making them a lot of times. Hard Light also manages to bring pop into the mix in a way they tried on 1993’s National Coma but didn’t quite pull off. “Tarantula” is their best song since “Winona,” a sweeping anthem that flies with the exuberance of youth in its roaring chorus. “Gal,” “Scapa Flow,” and closing track “T” are nearly as good. They also do a great version of The Clientele’s “Policeman Getting Lost.”

Maybe the 30 years away is what makes this so fresh — it feels they’ve tapped back into the joy of first playing together and found these songs waiting for them, and from there went with their gut the whole way. “If Hard Light isn’t what they expect (whoever they are),” Ackell says, “it might be because we were more interested in trying to create something they’d need.” Even if we didn’t know we needed it.

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: bar italia – The Twits (Matador)
London trio step out of the enigmatic mist and are all the better for it on their second album of 2023

A lot has changed in the world of London trio bar italia in the five months between their first and second albums of 2023. When they released Tracey Denim back in May, they seemed wilfully enigmatic: no credits on the album, a terrible, blown-out photo of the band on the album cover and even worse ones as official publicity images. They didn’t talk to press and you weren’t sure if they wanted anyone to hear their (very good, actually) music. But when they played NYC a month after its release, even though they didn’t say a word to the audience, you could see the shield of obscurity start to drop. When they announced The Twits it came with in-focus, properly lit press photos, videos that featured the band lip syncing, and it seemed they were ready to step tentatively into the light. “I’d rather be known as boring than mysterious right now,” the band’s Jezmi Tarik Fehmi told The Guardian recently in bar italia’s first major interview. “It was fine for a while but it’s got to the point where everything that’s written about us is caveated with the word ‘mysterious’.”

Apart from optics, not that much has changed in the way Fehmi, Sam Fenton and Nina Cristante make music together. It’s still basically one riff overwhich the three trade off lead vocals and melodies, but there is more focus this time, and on more than one occasion songs give at least the illusion of verse-chorus structure. Sam Fenton is emerging as the hookmaster, delivering the album’s super-catchy pop moments like the “I wanna be where you are / It’s on the seat of your car” chorus of “my little tony,” which is a perfect foil for Fehmi’s emotive yowl and Cristante’s (also very catchy) come-hither refrain of “Keep playing with my recеiving hand.” It’s easily the most immediate song to date.

Second most immediate single in bar italia’s prolific three-year career is “world’s greatest emoter,” also from The Twits, with Fenton delivering another earworm that at least feels like a chorus even if he only gets to sing it once. These three are still not playing by the rules. The Twits is a noisier, more upbeat sounding record — you can shake a leg to a lot of these songs — and despite having a band name that people think is a Pulp reference (it’s not), Blur’s self-titled 1997 album feels like an actual influence. Might bar italia have a “Song 2” in them? They’re heading in that direction.

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #3: Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee – Los Angeles (PIAS)
Supergroup featuring ex drummers of The Cure and Siouxsie & The Banshees, U2 collaborator Jacknife Lee and a bunch of big-name guests (James Murphy, Isaac Brock) is somehow pretty terrific

What to even expect from an unwieldy, mouthful-named trio like this? Lol Tolhurst and Budgie both played drums in two of the most iconic bands of the gloomy ’80s UK “alternative” scene. That takes your mind one place, while the addition of mega-producer/song doctor Jacknife Lee (U2, REM, The Killers, etc) is a wildcard that throws most preconceived notions out the window. Then there’s the impressive list of guests, including LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, The Edge, and more. I’m happy to report that the trio’s debut album, Los Angeles, exceeds whatever expectations you might have all while being a warts-and-all ode to the city the three call home.

Maybe not all expectations went out the window. Given 2/3rds of the group are drummers, this is a percussion-heavy record and if you know Lol’s work in The Cure (think “The Hanging Garden”) and Budgie’s in the Banshees or offshoot The Creatures (think “Spellbound” or “Standing There”) that’s clearly a starting point, with the music orbiting around that center (krautrock, post-punk, industrial). But Lee brings the hooks and structure, and these songs are much more than just thunderously pounded toms and people yelling atop them. Songs like Gilespie collab “Ghosted at Home,” which could be an outtake from Primal Scream’s Xtrmntr, sound crafted to fit the guest. Others, though, bring out new sounds from everyone. “We Got to Move” is the album’s most-immediate earworm, starting in Arabesque territory before making an emergency U-turn into infectious motorik dance-rock with Brock’s unmistakable yowl in the driver’s seat. It’s a setting you don’t normally hear him in and it’s so good I’d take a whole album of this.

Speaking of yowls, “Bodies” features outsider artist Lonnie Holley’s distinctive pipes, and here his usual improvisational nature has been corralled into controlled chaos with assist from harpist Mary Lattimore for a track that falls somewhere between Tom Waits and Nick Cave. James Murphy provides vocals on two songs, including Los Angeles‘ title track which allows for a New Yorker’s perspective on LaLaLand (“Los Angeles eats its children,” he wails); Gillespie, in addition to “Ghosted” is on two other songs, including laid back opener “This is What It Is” and the Massive Attack-ish “Country of the Blind.” The Edge plays on two tracks and while I can’t quite figure out what his contributions are on either, “Noche Oscura” is nonetheless a very cool instrumental. The whole thing just works which is probably the one thing I least expected. It’s rare when supergroups rise above vanity project status, but this one is actually greater than the sum of its parts.

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Spiritual Cramp – Spiritual Cramp (Blue Grape Music)
Debut album from this San Francisco band of hardcore vets plays like a lost album from the early-’00s 

Remember that time in 2003 when members of The Strokes, The Hives, Electric 6, The Killers and Stellastarr* formed that supergroup specifically designed to play and slay at parties? No? Ok that never happened, but if it had it might’ve sounded a little like the debut album from San Francisco’s Spiritual Cramp. Formed over a decade ago by Mike Bingham and Mike Fenton, who were both in Creative Adult and a bunch of hardcore bands before that, Spiritual Cramp feel like an excuse to have fun and explore areas of music they love outside (but adjacent to) the punk scene. “It never occurred to me that I could do a project that’s crazy enough to play some music where those influences actually trickle over,” Bingham told Alternative Press back in April. Early EPs showed a love of reggae, 2-Tone ska, mod, early Dexys Midnight Runners, and other influences and there’s a little bit of that on their official full-length debut. Things open with a deeply dubby groove that, like flipping a switch, abruptly shifts into the high-energy, slick and slashing “Blowback,” and its post-punk-garage style is the blueprint for this album. Spiritual Cramp deliver big hooks, bigger riffs, and fist-pumping choruses that Bingham infuses with a high melodrama delivery — you can hear the lipcurl sneer in every line. “Talkin on the Internet,” “Herbert’s on Holiday,” the very Hives-y “Better Off this Way” and “Can I Borrow Your Lighter,” and the rest of the album’s songs are all aimed straight at your pleasure centers and the indie disco dancefloor, in the same way Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, and The Dandy Warhols were 20 years ago. Does it seem a little calculated? Yes, but listen to this loud enough — preferably at a party — and Spiritual Cramp is a blast. Pass the free cans of Sparks!

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Jockstrap & Taylor Skye – I<3UQTINVU (Rough Trade)
Jockstrap’s Taylor Skye remixes their 2022 debut album giving it a dancey afterparty makeover

One of the best albums of 2022, Jockstrap’s full-length debut is a dizzying display of creativity and songwriting, blending genres and decades into a wholly unique style. Taylor Skye, one half of the duo and the group’s producer, has taken another whack at the album, reworking the whole thing. It’s so radical he gets title co-credit on I<3UQTINVU. “I made most of them really quickly, in a day or so,” Sky says of the remixes. “It keeps me sane to do this whilst mixing the album. I don’t really remember making them. It’s like eating too much and then throwing up and this is what comes out. It’s a weird feeling but also really fun. I felt very happy making some of this music and live it will be quite the show.” I<3UQTINVU takes things into much more explicitly dancey/electronic territory, with Taylor ripping them apart, tearing them down and building brand new creations. Many of the songs have had the melodies and Georgia Ellery’s vocals stripped out, with only tiny hooks remaining to suggest what it once was, and some have new features (Kirin J Callinan, IAN STARR, Coby Sey & Ersatz). There’s also “I Touch,” a rework of “Concrete Over Water,” that still has the framework of the original but takes it wild new directions. Like much of I<3UQTINVU and its source material, it’s terrific and the whole thing plays like the afterparty cousin to I Love You Jennifer B.

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The Embassy – E-Numbers (Dream On)
Swedish cult duo still make beautiful balearic beats on their first album in five years

Swedish duo The Embassy are one of those groups who are more influential than popular. Formed in 1999, Fredrik Lindson and Torbjörn Håkansson had their breezy style locked right out of the gate, mixing twee indiepop (a Swedish specialty) with balearic house music, and more than a little New Order worship. It’s a sound that fellow Swedes The Radio Dept would also adopt, and their early singles were inspiration for Jens Lekman, The Tough Alliance, Air France and other artists who would end up getting more attention. The spotlight doesn’t seem to be something The Embassy have ever worried about, though, and they have continued to make terrific records in much the same style over the last 25 years. E-Numbers is their fifth album and first in five years and finds them still on the same course, which is just where you want them to be. It’s an alternate universe Yacht Rock where Christopher Cross and Kenny Loggins were never born, where Scandinavians in stripey shirts, white jeans and Sperry Topsiders craft immaculate dancepop, dappled with melancholy, for all-night boat parties just off the coast of Ibiza. They’re still at the top of their game, too: “Amnesia” is The Embassy in a single song, a housey banger with a Peter Hook bassline, sheep samples and nods to The KLF and The Housemartins. You’re left elated but also a little sad; dance music with one eye on the comedown.

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Hotline TNT – Cartwheel (Third Man)
Shoegaze blends with heartland rock on Hotline TNT’s debut for Third Man

Hotline TNT is the current musical project from Will Anderson who has been making music since the late-’00s with groups like Weed, Infidel and Mr Dusty. Originally from Vancouver, Anderson runs things from Brooklyn these days and Cartwheel is the second Hotline TNT album which seems to pull equally from melodic punk, heartland rock and shoegaze, filtering it all through soft-focus, widescreen arrangements. Writing almost exclusively about love — the good, bad and in-between — Anderson crafts these recordings as big hugs, a calming aural thundershirt for the heartbroken and a fireworks display for those deep in romance. It’s definitely an outlier on Third Man, a label mostly known for garage, blues, country and Jack White. Paul Westerberg is an admitted influence here and you can hear it in the riffs and choruses of “I Thought You’d Change” and “Out of Town.” Anderson is clearly a talented songwriter but the arrangements could benefit from shedding a few layers and effects (especially on the vocals), but Cartwheel is nonetheless an impressive and dreamy piece of rock gymnastics.

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Matmos – Return to Archive (Smithsonian Folkways)
Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt sample vintage non-musical science and nature albums on their latest aural think piece

Yes you read that right, the new Matmos album is out on Smithsonian Folkways, the label arm of the government owned nonprofit institution who have released music by Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, Woody Guthrie, and Lead Belly. How the heck did they end up here? Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt are known for musical constructions featuring unusual samples, with whole albums created with sounds from washing machines and plastic containers; Return to Archive was made entirely from samples from the many non-musical nature and science recordings released by Folkways, including The Sounds of the Office (1964) to Sounds of Medicine (1955) to The Science of Sound (1958), and was made to promote the label. For Matmos, these “hoots, gurgles, thunks, zaps, howls, drips, bangs, and zings” were “an entire sonic universe…hidden in the back alleys of this back catalog.” Like a lot of Matmos records, they work better as a concept that elicits an “oh that’s cool” response than something you actually want to listen to. There are a few keepers, though. “Music or Noise?” is one, while it’s also serving as a question some might wonder when listening to Return to Archive.

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Old Fire – Iterations (Western Vinyl)
Companion EP to Old Fire’s great ‘Voids’ takes songs in new directions

Old Fire, aka John Mark Lapham of The Earlies and The Late Cord, released the wonderful Voids last year, an album which channeled This Mortal Coil and featured many notable guest vocalists, including Bill Callahan, Julia Holter, and Loma’s Emily Cross. He’s now released this new mini-LP with alternate versions of some of the album’s songs along with a few other related recordings. “With the way I record for Old Fire, I get so much material recorded with the various contributors that it’s oftentimes hard to switch off the construction process,” Lapham says. “I get really immersed in these recordings and keep going until there’s nowhere left to go….These songs felt like only half the story was told initially, so I wanted to flesh out these other iterations, and see where they went.” The album’s Emily Cross collaboration, “Blue Star,” goes from trip hop to to droning spectral folk on the renamed “Blue Strings,” and Bill Callahan’s “Corpus” heads further into jazzy space as “Mephisto.” There are also instrumentals that stemmed from Void’s second side. Nothing here is as compelling as anything on Void, but for fans of that album it’s an interesting companion, or as Lapham puts it, “I see these new parts as a continuation, and completion, of the story.”

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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.