Just a bunch of old albums that were amazing back when? Nah, there's more to these sets than that. Every one of these albums, of Mike Diver's uni years, are worth exploring today, be that again, or for the very first time.
I was at university from 1999 to 2002. And that period coincided with some fantastic bands breaking through from the British rock underground to the forefront of magazines like Kerrang!, and so many more. Coincidence? Probably – but there’s no doubt that I was buying a lot of music, and hitting a lot of gigs, back then, because the quality just kept coming.
Where to begin? Hundred Reasons (pictured, above) are as good a place as any, given the calls for their Ideas Above Our Station debut LP of May 2002 to have been included in our recent piece on first albums never to be bettered. And, sure enough, the Hampshire post-hardcore crew’s early material absolutely rocked with a rawness, a trueness, that later recordings didn’t quite live up to. (Which is not to say it was bad, at all; but there was something so pure, so precise, about the pop-savvy punch of tracks like Remmus and Silver that remains incredibly moreish.)
Ideas Above Our Station is, incredibly, 15 years old now. Wow. That makes me feel ancient. So, to belatedly celebrate that anniversary, and to roll down memory lane for a little, here’s a summary of said LP, plus six more that emerged in that three-year window of awesomeness that, really, no rock fan today should go without hearing. (Shout out to the many other artists and albums I could have included here. You, too, were great, and thank you.)
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