Reversal of Man - This Is Medicine (1999)

Classic late 90s screamo/hardcore. Listened to this LP twice in a row on Saturday while doing one million pushups, still hits. There was a moment, during "Butterflies", when I realized I was listening to a song about a friend who had died, that I had listened to a bunch of times with my friend Danny who died last year, in the very room in which we had probably last listened to it; and I felt like my heart had migrated to the front of my skull and was about to explode. But I breathed, got a good clear picture of Danny in my head, said "Hey, it's great to see you, I love you," and did some more pushups. My therapist would be proud.

Track listing:

1. January Twenty Second

2. Enoch Ardon

3. Fashion Cowboys

4. The Houngen

5. Butterflies

6. Mittens and Muzzles

7. Bless the Printing Press

8. The Lottery

9. Dying on Cue

10. Conjecture

11. Hills Have Eyes

12. Transfer Zounds

13. Hand Me Complaints Please

14. Rubberneck Telepathy

15. Idle Adolescents

16. Twenty Second Example of Repetitive Nature

Friends

Let's go dig some oil

And destroy some country

You should also listen to:

pg.99 - Document #5 (2000)

Crestfallen - Streaks of Terror (2003)

Electric Frankenstein - The Time Is Now! (1996)

Two of my dearest friends, along with my beautiful wife, never gave My Bloody Valentine a chance, and they all had the same reason: they thought they were a mid-aughts MySpace emo band. (Honestly, I'm pretty sure they were all just confusing them with My Chemical Romance.) When each of them finally heard MBV -- two of them because of me, the other because she read the Thurston Moore book -- they of course loved them because they're the greatest band of all time. Is it a bad band name? I don't think so, no. At least, it wasn't when they came up with it. But I'm certain that my friends weren't the only ones.

Similarly, for years, based on their name and aesthetic, I thought that Electric Frankenstein was one of the hundreds of Cramps-worship bands that invariably failed to understand what made that band great. And of course, I was wrong. Electric Frankenstein make some of the best garage punk rock and roll this side of Scandinavia. It was about 10 years ago that I discovered this, and I'm still kicking myself for all the wasted years. Technically a compilation of an EP and two 7"s, The Time Is Now! was my first EF album, and it's still my favorite.

Track listing:

1. Teenage Shutdown

2. The Time Is Now!

3. Superstar

4. Right on Target

5. I Want More

6. Demolition Joyride

7. E.F. Theme

8. Fast & Furious

9. Rise and Crash

10. We Are the Dangerous

11. Too Much for You

12. A Sweet Sickness

My heart stopped aching

It just ran out of room

I don't feel crazy anymore

There's blood on the moon

You should also hear:

Teengenerate - Get Action! (1994)

Gluecifer - Ridin' the Tiger (1997)