Heatmiser - Dead Air

Reissues!!!!. Dead Air is a mighty fine debut album, though arguably more credit goes to the band's true creative touchstone, fellow singer/guitarist Neil Gust. Openly gay but not making it his creative raison d'etre like, say, Pansy Division, Gust and company tear things with full-on energy, while the coproduction on the part of the band and Portland legend Thee Slayer Hippy is crisp and focused. There's a perhaps inevitable casting of grunge over everything given its 1993 genesis, but instead of sprawl the emphasis is on tautness, vocals rough but not whined, more Hüsker Dü and Mission of Burma, say, than Black Sabbath or Black Flag. Gust's knack for anthemic, empowering choruses infused with open emotional passion make the Fugazi comparison in particular appropriate, almost as if on his own he's fused Ian Mackaye and Guy Picciotto in one body. At one point, on the wonderful "Can't Be Touched," he even sounds like an aggro Michael Stipe. The songs don't waste time — 14 in 37 minutesTracks : 1. Still, 2. Candyland, 3. Mock-Up, 4. Dirt, 5. Bottle Rocket, 6. Blackout, 7. Stray, 8. Can't Be Touched, 9. Cannibal, 10. Don't Look Down, 11. Sands Hotel, 12. Low Life, 13. Buick, 14. Dead Air.

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