Mission of Burma: Vs. [MATADOR]

Why you'll love it

This Matador reissue was mastered at Sterling Sound and comes with a download card. Pitchfork ranked Vs. No. 49 on its Top 100 Albums of the 1980s, and Rolling Stone placed it No. 25 among the 40 Greatest Punk Albums in 2016.

This edition

• Mastered at Sterling Sound
• Download card included

About the album

Most bands use their first album to tidy up. Mission of Burma did the opposite. After the comparatively neat Signals, Calls, and Marches EP, the Boston four-piece set out to capture the chaos and noise of their live shows, booking a big room at Normandy Sound in Rhode Island and working on it from January to April 1982.

Roger Miller's guitar, Clint Conley's bass and Peter Prescott's drums do the obvious damage, but the secret weapon is Martin Swope, who ran the tape machines and fed loops and effects back into the band as they played. "Trem Two" is the standout (The Boston Phoenix said it sounded like the creation, destruction and rebirth of the universe in four minutes), "Secrets" opens at full tilt, and Conley's "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" shows how much melody hides under all that racket. Richard W. Harte produced.

Miller counted it among the greatest rock and roll records ever made, and Robert Christgau later bumped his grade up to an A minus. Play it loud; the neighbours were going to find out about your taste eventually.

Also at Kops: more Mission of Burma on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Matador / Ace of Hearts (cat# OLE 868-1), a reissue of the 1982 album.