When Sam the Record Man went into receivership, the flagship store hend some amazing sales. I believe I wrote about going back again and again to pick up the last remnants of their electronic music section, searching diligently for the (unfortunately rather) rare gems they happened to have in stock. Around that time, they held a clearance sale on literally hundreds of old casettes, and I picked up about a dozen of them, something like two for a dollar (x 6).

Which brings us to today ... I still haven't listened to most of those tapes! At the time, I did plan to put out a stream of Revisitation Reviews (into a notebook) but only one of them was ever written (The Levellers -- Levelling the Land, which turned to a series of jokes at the expensive of folk singers everywhere. I haven't listened to that album since). Inner City's "Fire" was reviewed prior to the Levellers one; it was an album which had fallen through the cracks for me. Somehow I'd never heard it despite being a big Inner City fan. The overall experience was considerably more positive than that with the Levellers. The Replacements final album, "All Shook Down", sat on my dresser for weeks until I finally heard it, but at that point I had lost the motivation to write about it. My spirits were partly ruined by some of the reviews I read, all of which slammed it as Westerberg solo album put out to fill contractual obligations. After I heard the album (neutral feelings about it), I read more reviews and all of them praised it to heaven. Hmm. It remains the only Replacements album I have ever heard.

But I have more -- eight albums worth! I don't know more than two songs on any of them! I don't want to handle a full, real-time review for all of them, particularly since I would like to be able to hear them while working on other things. So I will resurrect another old trick. I'll write exactly fifty words about each. If I feel the itch to comment further, it'll be in a separate article.

BELLY -- STAR. I didn't expect Slashing Guitars -- I could have sworn this was Lush at times. Generic Indie Rock stuck out more in the context of the Grunge era, no? This album is best at its softest, such as the gentle, echo-swamped "Altogether" (I am a sucker for acoustic strums).

FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY -- GASHED SENSES & CROSSFIRE. Crash. ARRGGGH. We are Front Line Assembly Front 242. Grrr. Pow!!! We are Front 242. Grrr. We want to be Front 242 so very badly. Grrr. Dooooom. So very badly. Where is my copy of "Front By Front"? Nice to hear that "Digital Tension Dementia" still sounds like "Smothered Hope".

B-MOVIE -- FOREVER RUNNING. I expected little from generic 80.s rock and there are no surprises to be found here. Well, "Blind Allegiance" has a Duran Duran-ish sax solo, albeit only five seconds worth. And "Nowhere Girl", the hit single, isn't the 12" remix that I remember and love from the old days. Boo.

KRISTIN HERSH -- HIPS AND MAKERS. I am in love, because I'm a big sucker for aggressive, repetitive, acoustic guitars strumming two chord mantras of doom. Kristin's gorgeous voice cuts jaggedly through the din and her claustrophobic lyrics make for harrowing, yet oddly soothing listening. Too many highlights-- this album is heading straight into heavy rotation.

INNER CITY -- BIG FUN. Along with L'il Louis' album from the same year, I'm probably incapable of properly judging "Big Fun" (plus, I've already heard the album, although it wasn.t until the late 90's). Their singles are near to my heart, these are my age 15 songs. This is Inner City. Just listen, dammit.

STEVE "SILK" HURLEY -- WORK IT OUT COMPILATION. This mainly precedes my adolescence, so I take more of an arms-length view. I've never understood claims that mid-80's house was badly produced -- simply produced, sure, it's basically vocals over four-bar loops (always over the same drum sounds, but rock drums all sounded the same in the 80's too).

More to follow later ...