Valentine’s Day is a loaded day to release a record and is probably not many artists’ personal choice (except maybe Drake). I’m happy to report that none of the six albums out today that I’m reviewing are the sonic equivalent of a three course pre-fix meal that ends with a flourless chocolate cake. These are homemade creations crafted with love, but not the ooey gooey kind greeting cards peddle.

Where am I going with this? I don’t know but here’s what we’ve got this week: the excellent second album from Chicago trio Horsegirl; a pedal-steel-fueled collaboration between Wire offshoot Immersion and ambient country pioneers SUSS; a new EP from former Guided by Voices member Tobin Sprout; the ambitious fifth album from Vancouver’s glammy Art d’Ecco; UK prog-folk artist Richard Dawson explores domesticity on The End of The Middle; and Halifax band Kestrels continue to fly the shoegaze flag proudly.

This week’s Indie Basement Classic comes to us from Glasgow 1991. Any guesses?

Over in Notable Releases, Andrew reviews the latest from John Glacier, Venturing (Jane Remover), Cryogeyser, and Church Tongue.

Speaking of Horsegirl, I talked to them about working with Cate Le Bon on their new album, Skippy Vs Jif, Chicago Vs NYC and lots more.

Other news Basement readers might be interested in: John Dwyer of OSEES has made an album with original Adam & The Ants / Bow Wow drummer David Barbarossa under the name Chime School; Peter Murphy made a song with Trent Reznor; American Analog Set are playing their first NYC shows in 20 years (opening for Death Cab); Ministry will play their formerly disowned early-’80s material on tour this year; and UK synthpop vets Blancmange will tour the US for the first time in nearly 40 years.

That’s enough small talk. Head below for this week’s reviews…

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Horsegirl – Phonetics On and On (Matador)
Cate Le Bon helps Horsegirl find their best selves for their excellent second album

One of the most promising bands of the early-’20s, Chicago trio Horsegirl released their first single, signed to Matador, and made their debut album at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio with John Agnello while still in high school. That record, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, is dense and hazy in mostly the right ways — it’s terrific — but their second album is markedly better. A big part of that is Penelope Lowenstein, Nora Cheng and Gigi Reece becoming better, more confident songwriters and performers due to three years of touring and life in general, but another part is for Phonetics On and On they were paired with a kindred spirit in Welsh musician/producer Cate Le Bon. The trio, who currently live in NYC (Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein are attending NYU), spent two weeks recording with Le Bon at Jeff Tweedy’s The Loft Studio during the dead of winter in what sounds like a warm bubble of open creativity. Penelope told us Cate put it like this: “I think so long as things are playful and we find sounds that feel exciting and follow that path, creating kind of a creative energy in the studio, then there’s no way this won’t turn out good.”

Cate was right. Where their first album was loud and fuzzy, Phonetics On and On feels like the ceiling was lifted 15 feet, the curtains raised, and the distortion pedals put away, clearing the fog in the process. (All good things.) These 11 songs showcase the connection between the three — the way their playing, voices and melodies compliment without getting in the way of each other. Horsegirl are still coming at you from odd angles, quieter but not soft. Minimal is not the right word here either; there’s a lot going on with even the most gentle songs (“Julie,” “Frontrunner”) but they’re given room to breathe, and they’re peppered with wonderful “doo doos,” “ba ba da ba dahs” and “la las.” It’s more Young Marble Giants and Electrelane and less Sonic Youth, making for an album that’s easy to let play on repeat all morning long, on and on.

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Art d’Ecco – Serene Demon (Paper Bag Records)
Vancouver glammy art pop musician delivers his most ambitious, possibly best, record yet

After making a 2022 album indebted to the Big ’80s, Vancouver wunderkind Art d’Ecco is back with a record that isn’t beholden to any one era, and all the better for it. The cover art nods to Hollywood’s Golden Age, with Art looking somewhere between Peter Lorre and Robert Mitchum in Night of Hunter, while the music pulls from ’70s glam, disco and space rock, ’80s funk (hello, Prince), and 2000s dancey post-punk. Made with the help of over 30 musicians and sessions with megaproducer Joe Chiccarelli, Serene Demon is his most ambitious work yet. “How do I challenge myself and throw the rule book out, but still make this the catchiest, quirkiest piece of music possible?,” d’Ecco muses. “I like existing between those two worlds.” Marc Bolan and Queen have always run through Art’s veins but here he never lets songs stay in just one lane: “Honeycomb” is “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” driven through the Florida Keys, while “Shell Shock” is slinky funk by way of The Alan Parson’s Project, and “The Tree of Life” and “The Traveller” are like Barry Gibb leading Franz Ferdinand through Siouxsie & The Banshees covers. Art just wants to be your everything and on Serene Demon he succeeds more than not.

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Immersion with SUSS – Nanocluster Vol. 3 (SWIM~)
Colin Newman (Wire) and Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact) collaborate with ambient country pioneers SUSS for a terrific album that’s both relaxing and compelling. It’s all about the pedal steel.

The pedal steel is one of the most amazing instruments ever created. It’s most associated country music and is capable of opening the waterworks on a tear-in-my-beer weepie, but works well in almost any genre. Gerry Rafferty’s 1978 classic In the City wouldn’t be the album it is without the contributions from one of the all-time pedal steel masters, BJ Cole, a musician who has since collaborated with everyone from electronic beatmaker Luke Vibert to Bjork, The Verve and actor/musician Matt Berry who said, quoting someone else, “if you can’t afford a string section, get a pedal steel.” The instrument’s true calling may be with ambient music, though, as anyone who’s ever heard Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Roger Eno’s majestic, transportive 1983 album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks knows. It’s at the heart of the band SUSS, who pioneered a blend of country and new age (and may still be its only practitioners), and have now made a wonderful new album with Immersion, aka the duo of Colin Newman (Wire) and wife Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact). It’s the latest in Immersion’s collaborative Nanocluster series and the best yet, a truly inspired combination. (It’s also the only Nanocluster album so far to inspire a tour.) SUSS’ pedal steel and other dreamy attributes (harmonica, harmonium, nylon string acoustic) are a perfect compliment to Newman and Spigel’s gently gurgling electronics, and makes for a record that that is equal parts relaxing, beautiful and compelling that never sacrifices melody for atmosphere.

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Tobin Sprout – Bevil Web (self-released)
Like his former bandmate Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout is still cranking out wonderful jangly earworms as he approaches 70

Tobin Sprout was in what a lot of Guided by Voices fans consider to be the best era of the group (mid-’80s to mid-’90s); the songs he brought to GBV really complimented Robert Pollard’s and made for some undeniably strong albums. He’s still making records and, just a couple months shy of his 70th birthday, and Sprout continues to deliver the goods. This EP is technically credited to Bevil Web, his new group with members of The Concussions, which is a name that those familiar with GBV lore may already recognize. “The Bevil Web band name was coined by Pete Jamison, original Guided By Voices manager and t-shirt maker,” Tobin told us. “I used the name for a couple side projects in the ‘90s and decided to use it again for this new group.” I’m not sure a new moniker is good business sense 40 years into your “brand,” but whatever you call it this is pure Sprout, with warm melodies and chiming guitars descended from Big Star. All four songs are terrific and if you’re entirely unfamiliar with Tobin’s catalog, anyone who likes Teenage Fanclub, Sloan or something current like MJ Lenderman should check this out. Thankfully, his core audience are a tenacious bunch and used to a complicated discography of which this EP is a wonderful addition.

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Richard Dawson – End of the Middle (Domino)
Survey says: UK prog-folk artist Richard Dawson stays close to home on his excellent eighth solo album

“I wanted this album to be small-scale and very domestic,” says British folk artist Richard Dawson, whose last record was a widescreen concept album made with Finnish experimental rock band Circle. “To be stripped back, reconnect with the basics and let everything speak for itself – to be really stark and naked by just putting the words and melodies out there.” Domesticity is at the heart of End of the Middle — there are songs about gardening — though the outside world is encroaching quickly. The title feels like there should be another word at the end, or at least an ellipsis; “class” seems to be the most likely candidate, as a steady job you stay at your whole life before retiring at 65 feels more and more like a fantasy while we try and recreate a life that only exists in old family photographs. Dawson’s lyrics are richly detailed, which he sings in a warm and weary voice — he always makes me think of Robert Wyatt — atop music that is as knotty and complex as the subject matter.

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Kestrels – Better Wonder (Darla)
Long-running Canadian band do what they do best, ’90s-style shoegaze, on their fifth album

Halifax, NS band Kestrels have been flying the shoegaze flag since the mid-’00s when the hazy indie rock genre was not exactly in fashion and are still flying it today when it most certainly is. Their brand of shoegaze is indebted to the OG early-’90s heyday when My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel and Swervedriver were destroying eardrums, and they’ve got all the moves, the tone, the pedals, the layering, the loud-quiet-loud, the ethereal harmonies, avalanche drumming, etc etc etc down to a science. Better Wonder is Kestrels’ fifth album and while I might argue that the songs that drift beyond the formula, like the almost power pop “Free Forever,” are the most successful, there’s no denying that when they stomp on the distortion, shockwaves go straight to the pleasure centers.

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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: Teenage Fanclub – Bandwagonesque (1991, Creation/DGC)
The album that brought Big Star back into the indie rock lexicon has aged very, very well

“She wears denim wherever she goes / She’s gonna buy a record by The Status Quo” is one of the classic album-opening couplets of the ’90s, the kind of lines that burn in your brain after the first play. When immediately after those lines, Norman Blake lets out the first (but far from the last) “Oh yeah” of Bandwagonesque and stomps on the fuzzbox, you’re hooked. Even if you don’t know who The Status Quo are, the line just sounds cool and has sent countless listeners down a ’70s rabbit hole to find out. That hole also includes Big Star, to whom this album owes many of its best moves. Teenage Fanclub were still growing as songwriters, but the album’s hit-quotient is extremely high, including such enduring earworms as “What You Do to Me,” “Star Sign,” “Metal Baby,” and “Alcoholiday.” Spin magazine infamously named Bandwagonesque their Album of the Year, ahead of Teenage Fanclub’s DGC labelmates Nirvana’s Nevermind, and while that still feels like an act of defiant contrarianism, the record itself has held up remarkably well. Oh yeah.

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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.