First I heard "Jesus Built My Hotrod" and dismissed the group - for I didn't like the sound of it. And then, a friend lent me his cassette containing this live album. At first I was equally horrified of the contents because up to that point I just started to accept the early 90's dance-type aggressive sound with some caution (discovering selected songs by NIN, NE, TKK and Front 242, some of whose discography now remains permanently as part of my collection).

With Ministry the thing was, it reminded far more of a Slayer-ish wall of noise, therefore it was far more my elder brother's cup of tea than mine (and as a result, he immediately responded to tracks like "Thieves" and "Burning Inside"). At first I was irritated by so much over-the-top aggression and used to make fun of "Thieves" in particular, which being played at such speed, sounded like an ugly bloodthirsty parody. But slowly, it started growing up on me, there was something fascinating behind the Ministry concept - it was all guitar and drums fueled frenzy but there was also samples and drum programmes that added to the fascinating madness of one's such live album. The first song that attracted me to Ministry here, was "So What". It delivered something more familiar with selections that I religiously started listening - like, say Nine Inch Nails' "Head Like a Hole" or "Sin". Slowly, I started paying attention to the rest of the live set - and maybe I'd still had a hard time accepting it, if it wasn't for the bonus track included on this cassette, called "You Know What You Are" (mind you, it was actually a Sony C-90 copy, not the original release tape). This was when I realised the eclectic nature of Ministry at the time. I simply coudn't put two + two together, it was a mixture of disgust and fascination. To reach "You Know What You Are" as the ultimate standout, placed at the tail end of the C-90's a-side space, I simply decided to listen to the whole thing while awaiting my favourite moment of destruction (which is not even related to the live album as a whole).

In the end, thanks to Ministry, I got more tolerant of selected crossover music types that dominated early nineties' alternative scene (yes, I also became infatuated with Nirvana but Ministry actually gave me more in terms of mercilessly blending electronics with thrash/death/black/call-it-what-you-want metal sound)... Today Al Jourgensen might lack this much energy or creativity, but I don't expect much from Ministry these days - the metal-dance-electronics crossover turned into a horrible cliche and seems to have sadly taken Ministry with it as well. However, there are nice mementos and "In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up" stands as a powerful testimony of Ministry the live act (as well as their then-established, amazing studio act). To imagine that this band once upon a time toured with groups like Culture Club, and sounded just as soft in comparison, was as shocking as the overall aggressive soundscape we know them for most of their commercially astonishing 1986-1992 discography. The list of musicians involved hear pleads for breathless gasps alone. After that, I discovered their work in retrospect - most of their newer stuff I missed for some reason, so I cannot judge any of it. But one thing I am certain of is that "In Case..." is undoubtedly one of the finest live albums there'll ever be in modern rock - sizzling blood, energy and atmosphere. You couldn't see it but listening to it, you couldn't escape your wild imagination of how big and spectacular an alternative concert might get. The golden era of underground, prior to it's wild mainstream breakthru scream - and inevitable demise onwards.

Reading all the reviews, spitting right at the face of a poor dismembered doll, it makes wonder how bad "Lulu" might really sound. Well, for most part, it will be remembered as one of the most boring experiment attempts between the two - at first hint - irreconcilable entities. Personally, I have divided feelings for both these entities. None of them neither irritate nor intrigue - they simply are there somewhere. And their results are just as mixed. It's funny how many already proclaimed "Lulu" "the worst" or "one of the worst" whatever-albums in history of mankind. Just because most press say so, it shouldn't scare you off opening "Loutallica's" Pandora's box and find out about it yourself. For some perversely strange reason, "Lulu" makes me laugh uncontrollably. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. And it features Metallica in one of their most romantically morbid record sleeves... Thanks to Lou.

I must say, I am a little bit disappointed that of all possible (and therefore amazing Poeme Electronique songs there are), the choice of the flipside to this, rather ambitiously produced pink vinyl 7" single, has decided in favour of "Rubber Dollies".

While "She's an Image" in this 7" remix sounds even more adorable (to equally adorable original version) providing the listener with true synthetic pleasure, "Rubber Dollies" is unnecessary, rather tedious (if not entirely leftover), overproduced evil. For that reason this one is not entirely a desired pink candy it intends to be.

While many remember them dearly to Prince and Prince alone, Wendy & Lisa are true treasure box, all of their own. Or if you prefer, the adorable couple did help his royal funkness big in writing some of his most memorable pieces in the 80s (among these, "Sometimes It Snows In April" remains a personal favourite and one day, a life's farewell wish).

Leaving The Revolution behind, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman focused on their own material with production help from Bobby Z, assisted by Kris Bell and Wendy's twin-sister Susannah - resulting in a masterpiece debut album that walks a thin line between pop's finest and the avant-garde respectfully (of course, don't take the latter for granted, in case you expect "noise" or any similar, radical leftfield artistic endeavours here - Wendy & Lisa perform sophisti-pop type of avant-garde music which is characterised by their exquisite multi-instrumentalism. It sounds like standard 80s' music but between its lines there are far too many layers to label it just another pop-rock album.

Not that it lacked deserved hits - all three of them placed at the very top beginning of the album; "Honeymoon Express", "Sideshow" and "Waterfall" each with their own atmosphere and strength... maybe the only remark to the album is this sudden hit-marathon - the remaining part of the album is far more intimate; the beautiful jazz-blues of "Stay", amazing Metheny/Hancock-esque instrumental called "White" (which echoes Prince's "Mountains" a little bit, in one of its drum-programme sequences - and mind you, Wendy & Lisa helped Prince arrange/write that one as well!), "Blues Away" which continues with stunning guitar/drumming textures and beautiful, layered vocals that occasionally lean on "Honeymoon Express" singing arrangement in some of the verses, serving as a nice reminder.

"Song About" is a standard ballad that will sadly be imprisoned by the obscurity of this very album (something tells me, Curtis Stigers borrowed the riff from this song for his "I Wonder Why") - featuring a short but effective piano solo way down the middle of it. Another beauty, "Chance To Grow", features faster drumming, but continues to use the moody guitar and piano melody. Comforting and melancholic "The Life" remains one of the duo's undiscovered masterpieces first time around - a ballad firmly constructed of acoustic guitar and piano solos with Wendy's vocals on top, resurfacing several years later (in different mix altogether) as main theme to the film "Dangerous Minds" (for which Wendy & Lisa scored the entire instrumental part of the soundtrack). "Everything But You" again shifts the rhythm section for another moody track that slides and grooves around the heart, with brilliant jazz-instrumental intermezzo towards the end, blending into the closing number "Light", the track which - as is the case with "Blues Away" echoing "Honeymoon Express" - chooses to recall some of the mood of "Sideshow".

In its entirety of around 50 minutes, "Wendy & Lisa" flows with such ease, while at the same time stays amazingly rich and complex album. Of highest recommendation, of course.

Many will object "Pure" is a bit of a downer, considering the energy and effort put into the group's 1988 debut masterpiece. While most songs here do heavily rely on "Lovely's" melodic sensibilities, "Pure" is by no means a flop - on contrary, it's more mature. There is some entrapment along the way though - to start with, for some reason the album includes one of the group's transitional songs, the excellent "Way Behind Me" (available also on later editions of "Lovely"). The song itself doesn't affect the mood of the whole album but for "Pure", The Primitives should have left it a sweet obscurity rather than exploiting its bonus potential on both albums equally.

Secondly, while earlier Primitives leaned heavily towards The Ramones with their own sense of innovation, on "Pure" some pieces can very easily be confused with the likes of Spacemen 3/Sonic Boom, The House Of Love and The Jesus & Mary Chain respecfully, due to its frequent use of psychedelic/dreamy guitar textures - the presence of Cocteau Twins is also evident in "Summer Rain"; a listener can very easily get confused, expecting Liz Fraser to start singing any second after the guitar intro, which by default is all Robin Guthrie's trademark sound. At the time, due to any such impressions, "Pure" very possibly suffered a great deal (the group's line-up change also contributed to any inconsistency), but it is by no means a plagiarist or weak record aiming at indie scene's then-actual trends (most notably the Shoegaze scene of the late 80s).

It still has raw energy, shares optimism and melancholy and dream-like qualities of a good pop record - Tracy's vocals are smooth, with occasional leads by one of her bandmates (strangely not credited anwhere), giving the whole structure more strength from basic punk-ish simplicity chords. As time goes by, many will sadly (and unfairly) underestimate The Primitives' legacy due to their lonesome top 10 success of "Crash", but the group should be explored from their whole lot of three albums' worth. "Pure" being the second, lost in the middle, where its many numbers shine with a decent light - most notably "Secrets", "Shine", "Sick Of It" or "Keep Me In Mind" to name a few. The CD version includes four extra numbers, each a delicious guitar-led pop candy - "Noose", the stunning "beat version" of "All the Way Down" (which even dares tackling Madchester's shores), a cover of Lou Reed's "I'll Be Your Mirror" and the closing number "I Almost Touched You".

An honest, recommended listen.

Encise's is a great introduction to the story. If we all, for a moment, turn our heads and ignore the fact Rob & Fab were lip-synching, and look into the music that's been offered in their heyday, there's pretty much a surprising mixture of styles that would have left many doubters mouth open back then. While it WAS image alone, as marketably exploited as it could possibly get, the album "All Or Nothing" wasn't just a hodge-podge of bittersweet pop brainwash for the Bravo generation of 1988. It does contain a number of guilty pleasures - being a confusing hybrid of underground hip-hop/house and of course - pop clichés. Very probably, the most annoying aspect in the Rob & Fab story at that point was the name they chose to represent - "Milli Vanilli" (betraying a very remote but still charming debt to a certain "Scritti Politti" by comparison), being easily memorable, catchy and like today's "Lady Gaga", annoyingly cut into the minds of countless listeners, whether they like it or not.

Of course, if Frank Farian wasn't a bastard he actually was, single-handedly constructing and directing the whole thing and then throwing his two frontmen executives to the lions - presenting it in a little bit different way could have meant the word "entertainment" would prevail and any marks of fraud would be less disturbing in terms of "music performers". Because it could have been an interesting showcase of models' mime and good pop tune to dance to when you were just 13. At the time, I was equally shocked regarding the "scandal", but more like naively thinking - "can this really be possible"? From a distance point of view, Rob & Fab were very obviously victims of a ruthless two-faced manager/producer and then along came the good old music industry, being a ruthless mechanism in itself, willing to chew Milli Vanilli to bits and spit it out on the other end, minced meat without a single option of recovery from such a publicly orchestrated scandal.

As it's already documented so far, the "original" Milli Vanilli story didn't end happily - while Rob Pilatus very probably didn't build a strong cocaine dependency mainly due to the infamous lip-synching career, the pressure of media mockery did help causing him suffer a mental breakdown resulting in suicide. While "All Or Nothing" is far from original and authentic work (a certain majority of songs from the album are basically covers or paraphrasing other people's work - most notably "Money", which in a weird sense echoes Pink Floyd's song, although nothing to do with it stylistically, except maybe for the opening cash register sample, or a massive use of Eric B & Rakim's drum sample on several pieces ("Girl You Know It's True", "Baby Don't Forget My Number" and "All or Nothing") - plus 'Ma Baker' and 'Hush'), the debut album does contain some enjoyable guilty pleasures - for one, take "Can't You Feel My Love", which runs from cheesy funk to a clumsy but entertaining "heavy-metal" riff down the middle of the song.

In all, a sad story to learn from - if you ever get approached by someone with a prepared recording contract.

Now striking a magic wand to search and download anything, I believe, many finally experienced pleasure of hearing the earliest Visage recording made available. Unlike everything they released afterwards, "Tar/Frequency 7" is by far the group's most experimentally flavoured offering. An earlier reviewer here marked the title song is identical in mix to the one slightly later appearing on the group's excellent debut album. I cannot agree to that one - while it's not that much different, this 7" version of "Tar" is less sharp, featuring some bits discreetly different (for example, sax solos towards the end of the song), while the very track is given a little bit more reverb in its entirety.

While "Tar" in itself provides a fascinating mixture of dance intensity and social comment, the real treasure piece here is definitely "Frequency 7" - a futuristic tour-de-force robo-synth punch in the teeth, that ends in vocal hysterics ("Face the future, is it now - you can't stop it anyhow...!"). For a long time this one has been sought after, but somewhere in the meantime Visage provided their fans with a slower (and somewhat more dull) "dance mix" version, that excluded vocals completely, relying on itself as instrumental. Now with a more proper scan of the 7" single, it's finally given a proper insight to Visage's earliest - and in my personal opinion, their most aggressive piece of music.

Reading all the 'metacritics' crap about how this album is "neither this nor that" actually makes it the ideal middle you want to explore. Because it's not hysterically overpraised hype but far more personal affair. Esben & the Witch are not in it for the next big thing (or at least they don't sound that ambitious, despite beautifully constructed details put into music). The only closest companion at the moment, in terms of sound, might be Telepathe - only Esben are far more threatening in being so beautifully cold. Yes, there are echoes of alternative music's more decent past but still, Esben are not lazy adventurers just picking possible influences at random for inspiration. They deserve a chance to haunt you on their own.

Imagine you're lying deep in the snow, beside you is a frozen body with an open mouth... while there's no more breaths coming out of the body's mouth, the echoes of another world, hidden - cry out from within, unleashed by some strange, luring ghostly presence...

"Violet Cries" is no fluke with an icy, utopian cover. Ideal for winter days and nights, maybe not to explore it perfectly alone, but that depends on how willingly claustrophobic and isolated you feel sharing its intimacy with anyone else.

The title alone actually (and sadly) describes the nature of this very tribute album - despite the irony of the DM's classic album's title which it paraphrases.

It couldn't have chosen a better moment for release, as indie-music's rather shaky late 90s time progressed into the rise of trendy nu-metal/quasi-industrial/r'n'b mash up, while more genuine electro-pop that Depeche Mode are naturally initiators and informers of, experienced a certain downfall during that time. Furtherly, it's truly sad that Mute Records and the group themselves never considered "For the Masses" a more genuine concept affair (just look at the example of This Mortal Coil's amazing in-house approach regarding tributes), allowing the results this weak and shallow.

Depeche Mode themselves today are just as washed-down-the-drain institution that finally turned into a rock band. I always like to say that people seeing them in concert during their golden era of 101/Violator/SOFAD tours were the happiest girls and boys witnessing true qualities of this band. The progress DM made with 'Faith and Devotion" onwards, is perfectly reasonable, according to their career circumstances, equally exploring new trends of the era. Still, while they helped making trends and despite their omnipresence stayed fairly aside, DM became aware of how enslaved at the same time their music became by others emulating these trends.

I wish there isn't that much frustration with a DM tribute album, because at a single mention the idea sounds truly promising. However, instead of giving DM a deserved credit and more personal respect, most artists here truly sound like a waste of time. The Cure, Meat Beat Manifesto, Apollo 440 - even Gus Gus (who - despite their interestingly perverse rendition of "Monument" and Daniel Agust's beautiful vocals - managed to stretch their selection into a spineless, over-the-top "Polydistortion-esque" leftover), and not to mention examples like Hooverphonic, Veruca Salt (this is the ultimate death of "Somebody"), Rabbit in the Moon, God Lives Underwater, Monster Magnet (theirs is definitely "black" but no "celebration" at all) or Dishwalla among the chosen "lucky ones", all doing an utterly boring, pointless reminder's job.

But of course my personal listener's dislike, above all, goes towards the work of Rammstein alone, as their established industrial macho-travesty mercilessly devours "Stripped" like a bunch of rednecks, becoming the tasteless norm of it all (the worst result of this is their version is far more popular in clubs these days than the original). In a way, the decision that the very Rammstein were going to force their cliches onto this very song, was as predictable as the evolution of goth culture towards Eurodance.

Covers, let alone this one, should be done with more gut feeling (and here, the only light at the end of a 60-something minute long dreadful tunnel belongs to Smashing Pumpkins ("Never Let Me Down Again") and Locust with their Gainsborroughesque-bossa-nova style rendition of "Master And Servant" and this was years before Nouvelle Vague), than that of simple "target groups" practice. While even the earlier attempt ("I Sometimes Wish I was Famous" anyone?) failed to give a more consistent concept tribute to DM, "For the Masses" sums up one thing most people dislike regarding the original group with a reason - the pretentiousness of their horde of lousy imitators. Luckily for Depeche Mode, years later, Johnny Cash singlehandedly washed off these ugly stains in a true legend style, paying an honest, deserved tribute to the group (a "Personal Jesus" worth believing in - even though Depeche did an acoustic version themselves back in the day).

With internet expanding its possibilities of hearing almost anything, I finally managed to get a listening grip on The Catch's one and only single release called 'Borderline' coupled with 'Black Blood'.

Cannot say whether I'd be intrigued at the time of this release (probably wouldn't notice) but in a time distance, it is impressive to hear, already at this raw disco-informed stage how the core trio of Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart and Peet Coombes, lit a spark that marked them for their entire careers.

Of the two, 'Borderline' is a much better offering, more consistent by its arrangement and presents how confident and amazing Annie sounds at this early stage of (t)he(i)r pop-career. The second track is a bit clumsier but altogether, 'Black Blood' managed to hold its strings together, additionally featuring interesting trumpet touches towards the end of the song, which even echoes some of Eurythmics-to-come early ideas.

In total, this attempt is impressive, but there is a feeling of the trio being forced into a specific marketing mould - being disco. Sounding more like tapping behind a certain Randy Crawford's disco signature (and both these songs do betray some obvious debts to the lady from her excellent 'Miss Randy Crawford' era), The Catch were effectively swimming, but couldn't last like this - luckily they were saved by ongoing Punk/New Wave explosion.

While many in the press at that period expressed rather hostile opinions about The Tourists (as they re-christened themselves), Annie, Peet and Dave weren't bandwagon jumpers nor one-hit wonders. They simply looked for the ideal place to fit in (or out), with a vision - and positively stubborn attitude to succeed. Well, for Peet, as Wikipedia now explains, the future sadly wasn't that bright - but for Annie and Dave... well, that's a more well documented history now. With this single kickstarting it all. Recommended for occasional listening.