Speed

In the late 1980s Louisville, KY was a breeding ground for a new, complex, art-damaged form of punk rock that ultimately and undoubtedly changed the face of underground rock forever. The two bands who were, unquestionably, the driving forces behind this movement were Slint and Crain. The former's story needs no introduction. The latter's is far overdue for re-examination. Twelve years after its original LP-only release, it is finally being reissued on CD, with four bonus tracks of rare and unreleased material. Recorded by Steve Albini in 1991 on an eight-track in his basement, and remastered from the original tapes by John Golden in 2004, Speed fits somewhere between the positive punk anthems of Fugazi and the gritty wall-of-noise melodicism of Nirvana. Throw in the occasional spoken-word vocals a la The Minutemen, and you have a record that was every bit as important as Spiderland in directing the quick evolution of underground American rock music. Be it for their envelope-pushing music, or certain members' notorious button-pushing antics, Crain's influence is wide-reaching and evident on countless records by everyone from James Murphy's now-defunct pre-DFA projects (Pony, Speedking) to widely popular and hugely influential acts like Shellac and Helmet. To call this Speed reissue "long-overdue" is quite an understatement.