Catherine Wheel - Chrome
You know, this album is criminally underrated. It's overshadowed by My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Ride's magnum opuses, and people very rarely point to "Chrome" and say, "now that's one of the greatest shoegaze albums." But really, it is among the best shoegaze albums. Catherine Wheel released one album before this and three albums after this, and none of them really reached this level at all. Which is disappointing. They had such potential.
Rob Dickensen and Brian Futter do in this album what makes shoegaze such a great genre -- they create a towering wall of overwhelming, roaring guitars and they do it extremely well. However, what makes this record great where many other shoegaze records fail is in the harmonies and melodies that this band created. Many shoegaze albums resort to sheer guitar squall, which is fine and all, but Catherine Wheel uses it to enhance the music and the haunting beauty they are trying to craft.
It's really a powerful record that should be in any shoegaze collection, without a doubt.