Reviews by ikejiri

Violator
I love the opening World in My Eyesit’s got a hint of Like a Virgin, but it's decidedly Depeche Mode, recalling things like Just Can’t Get Enough and New Life, but with their later, darker synth-goth edge.

Personal Jesus and Enjoy the Silence are obviously fantastic, the country guitar twang with the electronic rhythms is a brilliant combo on Personal Jesus. The quality is high on the rest of it too, with the brooding Sweetest Perfection, the string and reverby guitars are great. Halo has a slight early New Order feel and love the two synth hooks over each other. Waiting for the Night is another brooding, slightly sinister track, but with that light, airy almost childlike twinkling hook. Outside of Personal Jesus and Enjoy the Silence Policy of Truth is probably my favourite track, I just love the pitch bend. Blue Dress also has some New Order to it, but also a bit of Low, and is another great, doleful track. Clean is hypnotically great, the drums have a slight bit of Joy Division, and it ends the album on a superbly atmospheric note.

I’ve never properly listed to this before, but I loved it, not a weak track, moving between banging electro and ominous atmospheres, all with an undeniable pop edge. 5.
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Urban Hymns
I haven’t listened to this in a long time, and I was slightly trepidatious after revisiting A Northern Soul the other week and it not being as good as I remember.

And while this definitely has a few dips it is clearly a far better proposition than ANS, with a far stronger set of songs, even if it still doesn’t quite move me the way it did when I was 18.

I _loved_ Bittersweet Symphony when it came out, but it has been battered by ubiquity and by ITV over the last 30 years. Listening properly today though it is of course still a superb song, deserving of its longevity. The other singles are also great and more than stand up too, Sonnet, The Drugs Don’t Work and Lucky Man in particular I still love.

Those singles work brilliantly with the other excellent album tracks, combining the psychedelic drone rock of their first album and some of ANS with a harder, more focused edge on tracks like Catching the Butterfly, Come On and The Rolling People, and the breakout into widescreen, sweeping embracive and melodic rock brilliantly on things like Space & Time, One Day and Velvet Morning. They don’t go full Coldplay or U2, but this must surely have been an influence on Chris Martin and co.

Similar to previous albums McCabe’s guitar is excellent throughout, he must be one of the least talked about guitarists of that era, I suppose due to him being in and out of the band, but his playing really is fantastic, adding delicate touches with a sense of otherworldliness and dreaminess that is very appealing.

On the negative side of the ledger though it is too long with too many 5 minute+ songs, and with a couple of songs that are a level or two below the rest; Neon Wilderness feels aimlessly dirge-like and I’ve never been a particular fan of This Time.

On first listen I was thinking this was a 4, the lengthy nature of the songs and the whole album putting me off a little, but on repeat listens I started to fall for it again, making it a 5.
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Playlist submission: Could be many, but Space & Time grabbed me today.

Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor
I already knew Kick, Push, its a summer vibes playlist staple and a great mid 2000s hip hop track. It never made me investigate any of his stuff though and I had thought it might be a bit of an outlier on here, but it is in line with the rest of the tracks and it's actually a great album and nice discovery.

I really like the whole sound of it, it’s Kanye twinged but with a very pleasant shiny Y2K feel to the production, and there are some nice samples and interpolations. It doesn’t always have the percussive weight or sense of groove or musical density of his peers, but it's got a laid back summeriness and poppy edge that I really like. I like his cadence and vocal tone too, alternating between slowed down soulful delivery and quicker more dextrous tempos.

Lyrically though it is excellent, thoughtful and nuanced, especially when he raps about the stereotypes and complications and his own attitudes around hip hop on the excellent Hurt Me Soul, male role models growing up on the also excellent He Say She Say or American Imperialism on American Terrorist.

Alongside Kick, Push there are great tracks; Real is excellent, I Gotcha is a great Neptunes track, a pop-jazz strain running through it, the aforementioned He Say She Say, Sunshine, Daydreamin’s interpolation/sample of the oft-used Daydream is great, Hurt Me Soul, the Jay-Z assisted, slightly ragga feeling Pressure and The Emporor’s space soundtrack feel is very nice.

It’s definitely too long though, a bit of CD bloat pushing it about 4 or 5 tracks and about 20 minutes too far. Even with that though it’s a great mid-2000s hip hop album with an excellent lyrical view point, making it an easy 4.
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Playlist submission: I really like Hurt Me Soul, but I’ll stick with Kick, Push

Underwater Moonlight
I absolutely love this album cover, from the fonts to the photographic style to the creepy mannequins.

And the quality of music is just as good as the cover, as this is an excellent early 80s post punk album with a kind of psychedelic Velvet Underground feel, a bit of jangle pop and some great harmonies, not feeling a million miles away from Big Star.

Underneath the punkish sneer of I Wanna Destroy lies a power-pop chassis and it's a great opener. Kingdom of Love has a garage rock feel in the vein of Modern Lovers and a bit of Television in its country-esque guitars. Great lyric too. Positive Vibrations is the only song that didn’t really leave much of an impression, but it's still a fun track. I Got the Hots has a nice bluesiness, a slight Hendrix feel to the drum and bass pattern and I love Insanely Jealous of You, a wiry groove with some Neil-esque guitar and a fraught spoken word urgency. Tonight is a great Big Star/Velvet Underground/Television crossover with a great, catchy chorus. I love the 60s synth noises on You’ll Have to Go Sideways, feeling a bit like the theremin on Good Vibrations over a great motorik groove. Old Pervert is another great track, with a little bit of Bo Diddley in its dogged groove allied to scratchy post-punk guitars. Queen of Eyes is a lovely bit of power pop, recalling the Byrds and presaging REM in its jangliness, with an excellent chorus. Underwater Moonlight is also superb, some excellent guitars and another great drum and bass groove, again with an excellent chorus.

I liked this straightaway but it grew on me a lot over repeat listens. Positive Vibrations is by no means a bad track but really its the only dip among the excellence around it. I was aware of the Soft Boys name but had never listened to them before so this is a great discovery, and I enjoyed it so much it nudges to a 5.
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Playlist submission: Underwater Moonlight

Madman Across the Water
I suspect, like many people, I got into this album off the back of Tiny Dancer and Almost Famous.

Tiny Dancer is obviously an excellent song, but there are plenty of great songs on here alongside it. I always wondered if Levon was about Levon Helm, but even though it would be very easy to look that up I never have, perhaps out of wanting to maintain some mystery. Or more likely out of laziness. Nevertheless it's a truly great song, with a fantastic horn and string arrangement, reminiscent of Moonlight Mile, and along with Tiny Dancer gets the album off to a stellar start.

Razor Face feels a little like a dip after those two, but it is actually another great song, with another strong melody once it hits its stride in the bridge/chorus. Madman Across the Water is an excellent song, with another fantastic orchestral arrangement, and I love Taupin’s lyrics. His empathetic and evocative lyrics are excellent again on Indian Sunset, despite the odd bit of heavy handedness. Allied with a dramatic and melodramatic arrangement creates a superb bit of 70s bombast, and again the strings are superb. Holiday Inn has always been a favourite, I love its mandolin driven tune and the bass is excellent, and it brilliantly conjures the sense of being a touring rock star in the US in the 70s. Rotten Peaches country sing along is great, slightly reminding me of Country Comfort. All The Nasties is the true climax of the album, another superb arrangement and melody, before the mournful closing Goodbye.

This ultimately sits between a 4 and a 5, I love its combination of the countrified vibes of Tumbleweed Connection with the slide guitars, mandolin and lyrical themes with the superb orchestral arrangements and sense of almost proggy drama. Tinking about it every song is great, so it just nudges a 5.
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Playlist submission: Levon

Infected
I feel broadly the same about this as I did Soul Mining, in that there are some highlights, and in that it feels like it's something I should like, with lots of elements I’m normally into, but as a whole it doesn't quite resonate with me.

I’m not entirely sure why that is. His vocal style, I think, just doesn’t land for me, feeling a little like a pastiche of a Bowie-influenced 80s synth pop band and there’s also not a song anywhere as good as This is the Day.

I do like some of the 80s funk sound, as on the catchy title track, but I’m less convinced by some of the more jazzy sounds, sounding like a less comfortable and skilful Style Council.

Infected is a definite highlight though, but thematically is perhaps more where this album's strengths lie. Heartland effectively and evocatively depicts a divided and down at heel 80s Britain, with a winning sense of sincerity and earnestness and is the most successful jazz inflected track. Sweet Bird of Truth also works really well, with a more post-punk-funk feel and another strong lyric.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag so a 3 sounds fair - some strong songs but overall not fully satisfying.
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Playlist submission: Heartland

Roots
I really hated Arise, but I was interested to hear this having read that they incorporated traditional Brazilian folk and tribal music and instrumentation, as well as a focus on Brazilian heritage and history in the lyrics.

To be honest I struggled to pick out anything in the lyrics, such is the metal vocal style and the preponderance of him growling ‘shit’ every other line. Musically the Brazilian influences are rather sporadic and are too often swamped by the turgid and bog standard thrash/death/nu metal tropes. Ratamahatta and Breed Apart were perhaps the most successful at this blend, but they still get lost in the morass of heaviness.

Arise was a 1, but I think this is just a 2, it’s not really my thing overall, but I can appreciate there is at least some sense of thematic ambition. But having said that, metal is such a deeply conservative genre that even the smallest deviation from the doltish norm can appear revolutionary and inventive, and I think that is probably the case with this to a certain extent.
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Playlist submission: Breed Apart

It’s Too Late to Stop Now
This doesn’t quite have the same had-to-be-there factor that other live albums on the list do, probably due to being familiar with the majority of the songs, the intimate atmosphere, his excellent vocals and just how great the live band are.

But there is still an air of inessentialness to it if you aren’t an uber-Van fan or you didn’t see him live at his peak in this period. It’s not enjoyable and there are some great highlights - Warm Love, Into the Mystic, I’ve Been Working, Domino, Saint Dominic’s Preview, Gloria, Caravan, Cyprus Avenue - all tracks where the band really shine, particularly the strings, but I would generally prefer to listen to the studio albums from his Astral Weeks to Veedon Fleece pomp and 90 minutes is a lot of time to invest in it.

The length and my general ambivalence about live albums leads this to a 3 - the band, his vocals, the songs are all great, but ultimately it’s not as engaging for me as his studio recordings.
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Playlist submission: Domino

Fishscale
I’m not sure where he sits among the Wu-Tang rappers. Method Man is probably my favourite but Ghostface Killah is up there, he’s got a distinctive cadence and tone to his voice, it’s very 90s NY sounding but it has a kind of controlled forcefulness I really like.

The list of producers on here is quite mad, both in terms of numbers and names, and I particularly like the sound of J Dilla and MF Doom’s track. Although overall it has a great sound, a move away from RZA’s sound into a more well rounded and slightly more polished feel, if it doesn’t quite have the creepiness to it.

He is a great storyteller, there’s some great narratives and lines, and it does share in the cinematic, filmic vibe as much of Wu-Tang, and he hits his straps early on, Shaky Dog, Kilo and The Champ are a great opening trio, with great samples and groove. As is usual with so many rap albums the skits upset the rhythm, but it picks up again with the MF Doom produced 9 Milli Bros with the rest of WTC. Ragu has a bit of a RZA vibe, and the Bacharach sample, particularly the high pitched strings are great. I love J Dilla’s typical percussion part on Whip You With a Strap, although the lyrics are a bit old man bemoaning children not having the shit kicked out of them anymore. Back Like That and Be Easy are probably the catchiest and most immediate tracks, and the version of Be Easy without Ice Cube is better I think. Clipse of Doom and Jellyfish are again great MF Doom productions, Jellyfish in particular is excellent. The Family Affair sample is great on Dogs of War, and Underwater is yet another excellent MF Doom track. I’m not as keen on Momma, the David Axelrod sample is good, but it doesn’t quite land for me.

I like this and I like Ghostface Killah, but it probably isn’t at the same level as Liquid Swords, Tical or Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, so it hovers around 3 and 4. It is long, and the skits as always disrupt things, but I’ll tip to 4 as there are some great highlights and I enjoyed letting go round on repeat
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Playlist submission: Jellyfish

Maverick A Strike
I bought the Sunday Shining single when it came out, right around A-Levels and at the same time as the How High by The Charlatans single, as it’s linked very closely in my mind to the Title Fight. Even After All also really reminds me of Uni, particularly the ‘these sonic fruits’ line.

I’m also pretty certain I bought the album, I vaguely recall it was one of those cardboard sleeve cd cases, but listening now I don’t have much memory of the album itself, although I do think it is better than I was anticipating, even if it’s clearly not a top tier album.

Sunday Shining and Even After All are the obvious standouts, and I also like the other singles, It’s Great When We’re Together and Your Love Gets Sweeter

But the overall easy going, pop-reggae vibe is its strength, its lightweight, laid back summery feel making it an easy listen, if it is probably about 15 minutes too long. However I’ll tip it to a 3, as for a summer listen it's something I’d happily come back to, even if it does feel a little inessential.
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Playlist submission: Sunday Shining

Life Thru a Lens
I actually owned this album, it was one of those Britannia Music Club albums that I didn’t cancel and never took to HMV to swap for an album I actually wanted.

I remember at the time thinking it wasn’t terrible, before the massive success of Angels and his supercilious cheeky-chappy persona became overpoweringly irritating to my little teenage mind.

Listening now, and without having been in a student disco playing Angels at the end of the night for at least 25 years it's clear Let Me Entertain You and Angels are the standout tracks. Let Me Entertain You, despite it being lazily used as shorthand for ‘you will be excited’ on numerous TV shows and at numerous sporting events is a decent Stonesy pop-rock crossover. Angels, despite all the Robbie shaped baggage that comes with it, is a great, Oasis-adjacent, populist song, with an excellent melody and a brilliantly simple and universal theme.

Outside that though, while it's competently made and produced, it is an incontestably mediocre album with an all too apparent Oasis fixation, and a pervasive sense of safe, unthreatening attempts at varying rock styles. Although I’m not really into it, there's no denying he has a sense of charisma that a lot of people really like, but that can’t really elevate the unconvincing and run of the mill nature of it all. And when you factor in his rather thin and nasal voice, particularly when he’s desperately trying to channel Liam on Lazy Days, it all adds up to something not that interesting and distinctly ersatz.

Angels and Let Me Entertain You aside, there’s no real reason to listen again, even if I appreciate that the album is representative of the start of the Robbie Williams phenomenon in the UK. Low 2.
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Playlist submission: Angels

Garbage
I always liked the big singles from this, but I’ve never actually listened before.

It’s a slightly curious melange of grunge, alt rock, 90s electronica and pop, and when it works as on Queer, Only Happy When it Rains, Stupid Girl and Milk it's great, withButch Vig’s production and Shirley’s charisma coming together in some excellent songs.

Unfortunately though much of the rest of it rather falls into the territory of ho-hum mid 90s alt rock, that Vig’s electronic squiggles and Shirley’s punkish attitude can’t quite rescue. Of the remaining tracks As Heaven is Wide, with its electro-grunge feel and Vow, with its widescreen alt-rock-pop, are probably the strongest tracks.

It’s a bit of a shame that nothing really lives up to those 4 great songs, as all the elements are there to make a fun alt-rock electronic hybrid, but ultimately, and perhaps harshly considering I find them a generally likeable proposition, there just aren’t enough interesting songs to make me want to listen again. 2.
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Playlist submission: Only Happy When It Rains or Stupid Girl? Stupid Girl.

The Velvet Underground & Nico
I love how this lures you in with the sweetly naive and childlike sound of Sunday Morning, despite it actually being about paranoia, before descending into the squalid urban drug buying tale of I’m Waiting for the Man, with its unrelenting, driving, droning guitar and piano, rightly a rock classic.

The quality of song doesn’t relent over the remaining 40-odd minutes. Femme Fatale’s vaguely sinister Mittel-Europa do-wop is excellent and Venus in Furs is of course absolutely superb, a brooding, sharp edged, Middle-Eastern infused ode to S&M. I’ve come to love Run, Run, Run over the years, I love the pared back groove and the mixing of drug taking and religion in the lyrics, with Reed’s very Neil-esque guitar. All Tomorrow’s Parties is yet another stellar song, closing the first side with an undeviating, droning, dissonant inevitability, augmented by Nico’s strange tone and amelodic brilliance.

Heroin is yet another fantastically great song, building to a frenzied squall of guitar and viola, mirroring the depiction of heroin use in the lyrics. There She Goes’s jangly upbeat 60s pop is brilliantly sequenced after the freneticism of Heroin, although of course played through the lens of Lou Reed’s dirty mind. I’ll Be Your Mirror is another song I’ve really come to love, providing another little left turn into a relatively direct, sincere and delicate love song. The Black Angel’s Death Song is another great bit of sequencing after I’ll Be Your Mirror, a discordant, psychedelic exercise in noise, disjointed words and discomfort. European Son is another great song, with feedback and distortion swirling around a superbly relentless bass line, the whole song casting forward to White Light/White Heat.

It’s quite a mad album for 1967 set against what bands on the West Coast were doing and the prevailing summer of love psychedelic whimsy and acid rock tedium. It’s a cliche to say it’s ahead of its time, but its influence is undoubtedly gargantuan, and crucially it lives up to its reputation, and for me it's one of those albums that seems to get better and better the more I listen to it, with it’s crude and distorted production a genuine strength, feeding into the squalid New York Basement atmosphere of the whole album.

Straightforward 5.
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Playlist submission: Could be every song, but I’ll go I’m Waiting for the Man

Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches
Bummed was solid-to-good but this is certainly a big step up, there are a load of great songs on here, as well as some excellently scuzzy indie-dance-funk guitars and some superb bass playing. And I love Shaun Ryder’s delivery and brilliantly off kilter rhyming couplets and non-sequiters, tied together with a brilliant sense of silliness, wit and pointedness.

They obviously don’t have the elegance, suppleness and rock classicism of The Stone Roses, but they have a brilliantly inventive and distinctive way with a groove, a kind of shuffling, swinging, danceable sturdiness with an appealing messiness and rough hewn charm.

Kinky Afro and Gods Cop are a superb opening pair, Kinky Afro has a kind of hazy acid-psychedelic feel to it, and the bass on God’s Cop has a really satisfying depth to it. Donovan also has some great bass and I love its dubby, Balearic vibe with guitar and melodica. Grandbag’s Funeral has a slightly strange atmosphere, it feels almost like goth-funk, or a kind of gritty ABC vibe.

Loose Fit is absolutely brilliant, one of my favourite of theirs, again great bass and with a simple but incredibly memorable and hypnotic guitar riff. Dennis and Lois feels slightly lightweight in comparison but it has a pleasing sunniness and I love that little guitar break and the organ passing across the stereo channels. Bob’s Yer Uncle has a little of the feel of Donovan, a slight Ibizaness to its rhythm, and a brilliantly grubby set of lyrics. Step On sometimes suffers from its indie-disco ubiquity but it is of course a brilliant bit of dancey guitar music. I didn’t know it was a cover until about 10 or 15 years ago and while I quite like the original, its Madchester update is truly excellent. Holiday introduces a more soul oriented sound, and Rowetta’s backing vocals are great, as they are elsewhere and Harmony’s slide and hazy, loping, lumbering rhythm and sudden ending finish the album on a suitably odd note.

Obviously it's a very popular album and Step On was huge, but it probably gets a bit lost in the shade of The Stone Roses, but it is a truly excellent album. 5.
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Playlist submission: Step On is brilliant of course, but I love Loose Fit

The Last Broadcast
I’ve always liked There Goes the Fear and Pounding, and they’re still excellent songs, but on the rest of this it really struck me how unengaging I find his voice. It's very thin, especially on Words, with a Liam-esque nasal quality, but without much depth or throatyness.

Musically it’s solid if stolid indie rock but with some nice touches and oddities, the wonky guitars on There Goes the Fear, the swirling electronic noises in the title track, the twinkles of The Sulphur Man

I feel broadly the same as I do about the similarly sounding Elbow - a couple of great songs, but ultimately just fairly middling post-Britpop indie rock. I think I’m unlikely to listen again.
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Playlist submission: There Goes the Fear

The Real Thing
Epic is a great song and I like We Care A Lot, but outside that I’ve never been particularly curious about Faith No More.

I’m not sure whether this really changes that feeling that much, as for the most part it doesn’t particularly move me much either way, even though they are slightly, but clearly, set apart from their peers as they bring in some non-typical metal/alt rock elements in some of the keyboards and strings and the Jane’s Addiction/RHCP adjacent funk influence. However they do still tend to churn out some rather staid, bog standard metal riffing a bit too often, particularly on something like Surprise! You’re Dead! Or Zombie Eaters, and I think they tend to rather

From Out of Nowhere and Falling to Pieces both have great strings, and Falling into Pieces in particular is a very catchy bit of alt rock, probably the highlight outside of Epic.

It's a bit more hit and miss after the opening three songs. Songs often start interestingly, before reverting to regulation heaving riffing; Zombie Eaters, The Real Thing and The Morning After. I like Woodpecker From Mars, it’s middle Eastern strings add a nice point of difference, and it has a kind of psychedelic-funk-metal vibe I quite enjoy.

Overall, despite a couple of good songs, it’s just not really in my wheelhouse, and it doesn’t quite do enough with the interesting influences it does have to make me want to listen again.
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Playlist submission: Epic

Atomizer
Sonically this feels more interesting than many of their US punk peers, you can hear the hand of Steve Albini all over it. I really like the tinny drum machine paired with the scuzzy dirty bass sound, and there are some great little moments here and there like the repeating motif in Passing Complexion, the riff/intro to Kerosene and the guitar twang of Bazooka Joe

But song-wise it’s far less interesting, with only Passing Complexion, Kerosene and Bad Houses really standing out. Again like so much punk/metal/industrial when heaviness and difficult-ness become the overriding ethos it just feels like it hits a bit of a dead end quite quickly

An interesting album to hear once or twice but ultimately there’s not much that would make me think about revisiting, so a 2.
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Playlist submission: Kerosene

Déjà Vu
This has been the sound of the hot weather this week, especially having been out and about in the car, the sunny Californian patina to the harmonies feeling quite magical against the golden brown of the fields and hedgerows.

Along with the Everly Brothers and the Beatles, CSNY are some of my favourite harmony singers, and they sound fantastic on here, backed up by some excellent guitar and some superb songs.

Although I love the 2nd side, particularly Everybody I Love You, Neil’s Country Girl suite, 4+20 and Our House, the first side is utterly fantastic. The two songs welded together for Carry On make for a superb opener, especially the bass, and the hippy-country of Teach Your Children has such a lovely charm to it. Almost Cut My Hair is the uber-Crosby-Hippie anthem, and is again great. Their version of Woodstock finished the side brilliantly, but the apogee of side 1 and the whole record is Helpless, a truly beautiful song, played, sung and harmonised superbly.

The 2nd side doesn’t quite match the first, but as I say it’s still excellent, all adding up to an easy 5.
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Playlist submission: Helpless

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
After enjoying Slanted and Enchanted I was looking forward to this coming up, and I liked it much in the same way as I did Slanted and Enchanted.

It perhaps feels like some of the rougher edges have been worked off, but it still has the same loose, point of collapse charm of the first album with a few more folkish-popish-country-ish influences thrown in.

I love the almost Stonesy lope of the Silence Kid riff, before it moves off in a different direction and Elevate Me Later is similar in its baggy feel. Cut Your Hair is the obvious stand out, the 60s woo hoos, melody and memorable lyrics add up to a great track. Unfair is great, a more punkish feel, but another catchy melody working against the abrasiveness. Gold Soundz is great, with a nice wonky countryness to it. I love the jazzy plink of 5-4=Unity and the bass tone is also great on it. Range Life is the most overtly country influenced track and is excellent, up there with Cut Your Hair, and Heaven is a Truck carries on the sideways country feel, feeling like it's perpetually going to collapse. Hit The Plane Down is great, I love the almost funk feel to the bass.

Don’t think it quite makes it to a 5, but it's a very enjoyable slacker-ish alt rock album, with a clear influence on both US and UK bands that came after. Solid 4.
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Playlist submission: Cut Your Hair

Another Music in a Different Kitchen
This is superior pop punk - even if in the main it doesn’t contain songs quite as immediate or catchy as Ever Fallen in Love, Orgasm Addict or What Do I Get. Although I Don’t Mind is right up there as one of their best.

I also like that it has a sense of humour and silliness - all this slurping and sucking - that a lot of po-faced punk groups didn’t have, particularly on the American side.

It does sound a bit samey, particularly in terms of tempo, and they don’t always hit the melodic (or sardonic) gold that you might expect, but I enjoyed it more with each listen, particularly the second half, going from the pop-punk sweetness of I Don’t Mind to the proto Magazine, motorik infused Fiction Romance and the slightly Stoogian and brilliantly droning and relentless Autonomy before returning to bouncy punk pop in I Need, with it’s excellent bass. Moving Away From the Pulsebeat is also great, a mix of Bo Diddley Rhythms and scratchy, punky guitars.

The first side may not be as strong, but it's still a great listen, even if it grows more slowly than side 2. Fast Cars is an excellent opener, and although No Reply and You Tear Me Up are a bit interchangeable, Get On Our Own has great high paced energy and Sixteen is excellent, the propulsive drumming and bass driving a vaguely discordant groove.

I was probably at a 3 at first but after a few more listens I think that improves to a 4, especially because of the excellent side 2 and its short sharp 35 minute running time.
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Playlist submission: I Don’t Mind