Harvey Milk

Originally meant to be the band’s debut album, the self-titled record was recorded with Bob Weston (of Shellac) in 1994 before being mysteriously shelved and thrust into a world of obscurity. Remastered from one of the bootleg cassettes copies that’s been floating around for over a decade, the album serves as a snapshot of the band just before releasing the experimental noise/sludge of their proper debut, My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment of What My Love Could Be. Leaning more towards (relatively) straight-ahead sludge metal, the album feels like the band's later work (Special Wishes, Life...The Best Game in Town), with the emphasis more on the crushing guitars and Creston Spiers’ anguished vocals. What’s really surprising about this album is that, unlike a lot of long-lost demo albums and rarities compilations, these songs feel fully realized, which makes sense, seeing as this was supposed to be Harvey Milk’s debut. Rather than showing the humble beginnings of an experimental band, this album highlights the fact that, even from the very beginning, they were the enigmatic and impossibly heavy group that they are today.