Adjectives like “searing” and “merciless” rarely apply to banjo music, but in this case it’s appropriate. Frontman Chet “Three-Thumbs” Jackson of Silage Nightmare picks the strings so fast his band can barely keep up, but on Blind Hippo they manage, and the result is some of the most exquisite bluegrass you will ever hear.
Nobody ever did grunge like The Dominatrices. This album cemented the band’s signature 5-pedal style, in which lead singer Tommy Payne’s already-husky voice was routed through the same effects pedals as the guitars, masking the banal lyrics safely beyond comprehension.
Ska craze and brief media darling Matchmakers for Headhunters gave the world more of the same with 2001’s Self-Medicating with Sandwiches. Despite a panning in the press, the album sold well to dedicated fans, keeping the tensions between band members at ease long enough for them to produce two more discs in the next three years.
The Lapsed Catholics’ alt rock cred suffered a blow in 1994 after reviewers panned their third album, Crystal Methodist. Widely called “conventional” and “trite,” the disc failed to capture the marketshare it required, heralding the band’s gradual decline.
After bassist Francis Schafer stormed out of the recording studio that fateful day in April 1982, VDM was in disarray. It wasn’t until late 1985 that the remaining members, with newcomer Lance Storm, were able to tear up the charts as The New Vapor Degreaser Machines with this bone-shattering reunion album.
These mavens of psychadelia tore up the charts in 1972.
The sophomore album of The Overpaid Consultants is a progressive-rock masterpiece. Features an improvised 17-minute hammer dulcimer solo by loose cannon front man Neville McSanderson.