Galaxie 500 - This Is Our Music (1990)
Galaxie 500 are more widely known for their stunning 1989 album On Fire, which is indeed one of my all-time favourite albums. Following up On Fire however was going to be no easy task but they did an excellent job in crafting an album well capable of standing up to it. This Is Our Music does however seem to stand in the shadow of On Fire and is seen by many as inferior, but it doesn’t deserve to be seen that way. I see it as the last instalment in the great indie rock trilogy that was Galaxie 500’s three studio albums. Being the band’s final album there is that bittersweet feeling when you’re listening to it of something great coming to an end. This seems to show through on the fragile and melancholic songs ‘Spook’ and ‘Sorry’, both great insights into frontman Dean Wareham’s soul. ‘Sorry’ even seems to have a glimmer of hope to it where the dark clouds of the song give way to a wonderful and uplifting instrumental break. Where the album really comes alive however is on the unforgettable opening song ‘Fourth of July’ and their incredible interpretation of Yoko Ono’s ‘Listen, The Snow Is Falling’, the latter where Naomi Yang’s thin yet haunting vocals give way to Dean Wareham’s astonishing lead guitar break and show what incredible places their music can take you to.
This Is Our Music benefits from slightly better production than their previous two albums and gives their sound that little bit more clarity, but really it’s the great music on offer here that makes it stand up well against On Fire. Galaxie 500 burned fast but bright and they left three studio albums behind that are each amazing in their own way. A perfect legacy left behind by one of the greatest and most unique indie rock bands. This was their music.
Recommended Songs: ‘Fourth of July’, ‘Listen, The Snow Is Falling’, ‘Sorry’
The God Machine - Scenes From The Second Storey (1993)
The God Machine occupied the heavier end of the alternative rock spectrum, perhaps even touching on alternative metal. They were a band ahead of their time and perhaps if they had come along ten years later or so they could have reaped the rewards of their forward-thinking music. Their two studio albums, this and their final album One Last Laugh In a Place Of Dying, are both sprawling albums that take you on a dark and sometimes uncomfortable journey with many twists and turns and feature a well of depth. Scenes From The Second Storey seems to invoke the feeling of some sort of post-war apocalypse at times, perhaps predicting the final outcome of war in the Middle East. The use of Middle-Eastern-tinged samples on ‘Home’ and the paranoid samples on ‘The Desert Song’ combined with the overall feeling of doom seem to invoke this feeling, but that’s just my interpretation. Songs here range from pounding yet progressive alternative rock (‘Dream Machine’, ‘She Said’), to industrial-tinged experimental tracks (‘The Desert Song’, Temptation’), to quiet and deeply introspective pieces (‘It’s All Over’, ‘The Piano Song’), all tied together by an end-of-world feeling, the bands’ ambitious vision and frontman Robin Proper-Sheppard’s dark and cryptic lyrics. The album is perhaps overlong but its sprawling one-hour eighteen-minute length doesn’t prevent this album from being an immensely enjoyable listen.
The death of bassist Jimmy Fernandez from a brain tumour put a tragic and premature end to the band’s career, if they had gone on who knows what they could have achieved, they could have given Tool or The Smashing Pumpkins some serious competition. I could have easily included 1994's One Last Laugh In a Place of Dying instead of this as they are almost equally as good, but by listening to both these albums you get the sense that these guys were on to something. A real forgotten gem from a sadly forgotten band.
Recommended Songs: ‘Home’, ‘It’s All Over’, ‘The Piano Song’