This week: Austin band Font put 2005 in a blender for their debut album; enignmatic group SAULT‘ are back with another gorgeously produced record; Hot Chip co-founder Joe Goddard‘s collab-heavy Harmonics; Metronomy‘s even-more-collaborative Posse EP Vol. 2; Water From Your Eyes‘ cover Chumbawamba and Adele on new EP; and Molly Nilsson‘s Un-American Activities.

This week also debuts a new regular feature: Indie Basement Classics, where I’ll spotlight a great album from the past that ties into today in some way. As 4AD vets The Wolfgang Press just announced their first album in three decades, I’m launching this feature with a look back at their 1991 record Queer.

For more reviews, head to Notable Releases where Andrew spins new albums by Cassandra Jenkins, Johnny Blue Skies (aka Sturgill Simpson), and more.

This was a very busy week for announcements, including new albums on the way from King Gizzard, Robyn Hitchcock, Ty Segall, Kelly Lee Owens, Warmduscher, MEMORIALS (Electrelane/It Hugs Back), and Field Music. There are also cool new reissues on the way from Galaxie 500, Cocteau Twins, and Mark Lanegan, and Stephen Malkmus looks to have formed a band with Matt Sweeney, Jim White and Emmett Kelly.

If you need more catching up, check out the Indie Basement Best Albums of 2024 So Far list and the Indie Basement Best of June roundup. Both come with handy playlists.

Head below for this week’s reviews.

Font – Strange Burden (Acrophase)
Austin band’s debut album manages to capture their onstage lighting on tape 

Austin’s Font came up the old fashioned way, spending more time on their live show instead of immediately hitting the studio. Formed in 2022, they gained a reputation pretty quick for their charged performances led by magnetic frontman Thom Waddill, and a sound that hearkened back to the mid-’00s blog rock scene. Soon they were opening for Fontaines D.C., bar italia, and more. Two years later, they’ve released their debut album which shows off some strong songwriting and manages to bottle some of that on-stage lightning. Strange Burden plays like a mashup of 2005: there are propulsive dancerock songs you could imagine coming out on DFA (“Hey Kekulé,” “It”), skronky spretchesgang rave-ups (“Sentence I”) and a couple swaying anthems (“Looking at Engines,” “Cattle Prod”) that flirt with the millennial whoop anthemecism of Arcade Fire and Cold War Kids (and This is Happening-era LCD Soundsystem). It is not, however, indie sleaze pastiche like The Dare. Through it all, Waddill is giving it his all and you can imagine the sweat pouring down his brow while singing these songs. The album ends with the slow-building stormer “Natalie’s Song” that feels like 300 people crammed in a steamy, 250-capacity room, all bouncing up and down together. Strange Burden is a terrific summation of what Font do that also may have you checking to see when they’re playing near you.

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SAULT – Acts of Faith (Forever Living Originals)
Yet another stunner from this enigmatic UK collective led by producer Inflo

Back in December, enigmatic UK collective SAULT played their first-ever live show which happened at massive London venue The Drumsheds. It was as much an art installation as a concert; attendees made their way through a maze of warehouse aisles and shelves before finding themselves in a re-creation of a rundown apartment. You had to open and walk through the refrigerator to enter the futuristic main space where the band played in a glass-enclosed chamber. The centerpiece of the show — which featured Little Simz, Cleo Soul, Michael Kiwanuka and the rest of SAULT’s usual crew — and the title of the event was “Acts of Faith,” their new album that had yet to be released. (They’d just released five the month before all on the same day.) At the time they referred to the “Acts of Faith” performance as a “live album” but here we are, seven months later, with the studio version that the band dropped, as usual, with no warning as a (now expired) free WeTransfer download.

Acts of Faith came as a single, 32-minute WAV file and while its nine chapters flow seamlessly into one another, there are clear songs within them. It’s a joyous rumination on faith, but even those who are generally allergic to “religious” music will find lots of love here. The music is flat-out spectacular, a mix of groovy, bubbly soul, light funk, and sunshine pop. With the swoony strings, fluttering flutes, dancing “la la la” refrains and effervescent harmonies, it’s somewhere between The 5th Dimension and The Free Design. As usual, Inflo’s production and arrangements are perfect, and the message never really gets too preachy. If this was an actual church band, attendance would certainly go up.

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Ynys – Dosbarth Nos (Libertino Records)
Fans of lush orch pop like ELO or Seals and Croft should check out this second album from this Welsh band led by former Race Horses member Dylan Jones

Ynys is the latest musical venture from Welsh musician Dylan Hughes who a few of you may remember from his previous band Race Horses (who originally were called Radio Luxembourg). Unlike his artier former bandmate Meilyr Jones, Hughes is is a pop musician at heart and the band’s second album, Dosbarth Nos (“Night Class”), is absolutely crammed with hook-laden earworms. Specifically, these are very ’70s-style earworms. Jones has a way with ELO/Seals & Croft-style orchestral pop, flecked with a little ’80s synthpop, and songs like “Shindig,” “Hi Sy’n Canu,” and “Wild Waves” are pretty undeniable. Not all songs are in sung in Welsh, but most are, and in the midst of enjoying a big chorus you might notice Jones’ mouthful-of-consonants delivery — and that you don’t know what he’s singing — but the songs are so catchy it never pulls you out of the pleasure center. Also: if you like Super Furry Animals or Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, you need Ynys in your life.

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Joe Goddard – Harmonics (Domino)
Third solo album from the Hot Chip co-founder is heavy on cool collabs but the songs where he’s truly on his own stand out too

Most people think of Alexis Taylor as the singer of Hot Chip, and those people are not wrong, but I don’t think co-founder Joe Goddard gets enough credit for his contributions in the singing department. For one thing his lower register compliments Taylor’s voice so well — their best songs mix both their voices — but he also sounds great on his own. Go back and listen to “No Fit State” from 2005’s The Warning for a great example. Goddard does seem to prefer taking a back seat most of the time though, even on his solo records. Harmonics is Goddard’s third album and was designed with collaboration in mind; nearly every song features a different guest vocalist, including Barrie, Ibibio Sound Machine, Hayden Thorpe (ex Wild Beasts), Alabaster DePlume, his Hot Chip bandmates Alexis Taylor and Al Doyle, JUNGLE‘s Tom McFarland, UK rapper Oranje, Findia, Fiorious, and Guinean vocalist Falle Nioke.

Harmonics is also an almost pure dance record, even more than Hot Chip records tend to be, and he creates these tracks to make the most of his guests. Especially good: “Progress,” featuring Ibibio Sound Machine, which sounds like a collision of Ghanaian High Life, ’90s house and The Bronski Beat; pure house banger “Destiny” (ft Findia); and Hayden Thorpe collab “Summon” which is so good you wonder why they don’t just make a whole album together. (It’s a similar revelation to the first time I heard Hercules & Love Affair’s “Blind” with ANHONI.) That said, my favorite songs on Harmonics might be the two chill ones Joe sings by himself in the middle of the album: the warm and wonderful “Follow You” and the glitchy “On My Mind” which both show he has no problem carrying things on his own.

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Metronomy – Posse EP Volume 2 (Ninja Tune)
Metronomy’s Joe Mount is also in a collaborative mood on this EP that takes them to places they’ve never gone

Metronomy, as a live band, are currently on hiatus but main creative Joe Mount is using the down time from shows to explore new musical avenues via a series of collaborative Posse EPs. Volume 2, which is also Metronomy’s first release on Ninja Tune after years on French label Because Music, really lets Mount stretch his wings. None of these five songs have any of the usual Metronomy earmarks (Mount doesn’t sing on any of them) but all are cool, catchy and surprising. Nearly all of his collaborators are rising artists as well, which Mount says he finds inspiring.

My favorite one on the EP is “With Balance” that features Naima Bock (who made my favorite album of 2022) and features her melancholic vocals against gently picked nylon string guitar. The song throws a curveball when poet Joshua Idehen bounds in for a verse, his rhymes atop layers of airy synths. When Naima’s harmonies slide back in, underneath, it’s bliss. Almost as good, in a completely different way, is “Nice Town” featuring Pan Amsterdam which has him rapping over a cheap drum machine beat and housey synths. That one also features a cool, jazzy trumpet solo. Like most of these tracks, it doesn’t seem like it should work, but it does. Most fun, though, is “Typical,” which features a whole bunch of guests — Lynks, Spider, Master Peace, and TaliaBle — and plays like a very old school rap track with blasts of sampled rock guitar. It’s like something Rick Rubin would’ve made in his dorm room but never released. I’m glad Metronomy did.

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Molly Nilsson – Un​-​American Activities (Night School)
Fiery politics and anthemic synthpop melodies charge Swedish singer’s latest

Swedish synthpop artist Molly Nilsson made her new album, Un-American Activities, early this year in California at Villa Aurora, the former home of German Jewish author, poet and political activist Lion Feuchtwanger. The album is “a love note not only to the artist who was among the very first to be declared an ‘enemy of the state’ by the Nazi regime but also to both the eternal struggle he fought…it is also a double-pointed poison pen letter: a critique of the new forms of oppression wielded by her temporary adopted country of the USA but also an acknowledgement of the promise it always offers but never fulfils.” I’m not sure I would pick up on the album’s concept if I hadn’t read the liner notes but there’s no missing the anger and socialist bent in the lyrics, like on “Excalibur”: “Forget about Las Vegas / What we lost on roulette / We’re betting on red / And thеre’s no giving up now.” These empowering political invectives, like “Excalibur,” “Jackboots Return” and “Palestine (Somewhere Over the Rainbow),” are delivered via Nilsson’s usual very catchy brand of minimal wave and her gang-style multi-tracked vocals make every chorus a memorable call to arms.

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Water From Your Eyes – MP3 Player 1 (Matador)
The Brooklyn art-pop duo cover Chumbawamba, Adele and more on this fun if slight stopgap EP

I love covers. At least when an artist makes someone else’s song their own. The Fall were masters at that. So were The Wedding Present. I especially love reggae covers (even, occasionally, ones by UB40 that don’t have to do with fermented grapes), and synthpop covers, and country covers (and reggae versions of country songs). But you gotta bring something new to the table, which brings us to this new EP by NYC’s Water From Your Eyes that features their take on songs by Chumbawamba, Adele, Al Green, and Third Eye Blind.

“These are covers that we made at the same time as we were finishing Everyone’s Crushed,” the band’s Nate Amos and Rachel Brown say. “Nate chose ‘Good Ship Lifestyle’ and Rachel chose the other three. Chumbawamba is an obvious favorite of ours, but it is between Adele in the style of The Cure and Al Green as the most left field covers we could have chosen. We think it’s funny and good, but ultimately that will be left to the listeners to decide for themselves.”

I also think MP3 Player 1 is pretty good and kinda funny, but thankfully it never goes from funny into novelty status. My favorite here is their version of Adele’s “Someone Like You,” though I don’t agree with them that it sounds like The Cure (the bassline isn’t Simon Gallup level memorable). It does, however, have that early-’80s guitar pop feel. I also like their take on Third Eye Blind’s “Motorcycle Drive-By” (a deep cut from from 3EB’s hit debut that I’d never heard before hearing WFYE’s version) that deflates some of Stephen Jenkins’ bombast with a slightly more low-key arrangement. Same goes for Chumbawamba’s “The Good Ship Lifestyle” (a deep cut from Tubthumper) which retains the original’s drum-and-bass-powered verse / fuzz pedal chorus form, but they do it lo-fi and Rachel Brown’s vocals take it to a new place. You could also say that about “Tired of Being Alone.” Al Green has one of the greatest voices in the history of pop and this one’s a little too karaoke for its own good, and could’ve used a good twisting up. Still, when Brown yelps out the “yeahhhhh baby!” there is an understated, off-the-cuff charm. They’re having fun with this you can tell and maybe this exercise will provide inspiration for their next proper record.

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: The Wolfgang Press – Queer (4AD, 1991)
What happens when an arty goth band discovers De La Soul? You get The Wolfgang Press’ inventive, very fun fourth album.

New feature alert! Every week in Indie Basement going forward, I’ll pick a record that in some way I consider to be a classic. Probably an “underrated” classic in the larger scheme of things, but one I think is definitely worth checking out, and one that will have a connection to now. For the first installment of Indie Basement Classics, I’m writing about Queer, the fourth album from UK band and ’80s 4AD Records staples The Wolfgang Press who just announced their first album in nearly 30 years.

In 1991, The Wolfgang Press were 4AD’s longest-running band, having gotten their start in the early-’80s making gothy post-punk that showed a fondness for funk and dub. As the decade wore on, The Wolfgang Press lightened up and got better with every release, making one of 1989’s most underrated albums, the Flood-produced Bird Wood Cage. Around that same time, the band became obsessed with the Native Tongues hip hop scene (De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest) and, in the words of frontman Mick Allen, “rediscovered that music could indeed be fun.” And fun they had on Queer, their sample-heavy, breakbeat-reliant fourth album that found them delighting in new pop sounds (“Birmingham,” “Louis XIV,” a cover of Three Dog Night’s Mamma Told Me Not to Come”) while still keeping an air of menace. (Credit should also go to former Throwing Muses bassist Leslie Langston who lays down serious grooves on this album.) The dichotomy between the bouncy music and Allen’s disaffected growl remains its most brilliant gambit, and unlike a lot of dancey/ravey rock records from this era, Queer still holds up.

One word of warning: worried about copyright lawsuits, the American release (green cover) of the album removed all the samples — both music (Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk) and movie dialogue — and removed a lot of the fun in the process. It’s to be avoided at all costs. Thankfully, the version on streaming services is the original UK release (yellow cover).

Also: I almost picked Bird Wood Cage for this feature and you should check that one out too!

Speaking of albums influenced by De La Soul, Travis have a new album out today too, and Fran Healy told us about its influences.

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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.