Shoot the Messenger

A genius meld of straight-up spine-tingling body-shaking rock and ambient moods, loops, and encircling blipsbeepsandscreams. The Lustre King has its science of melding beautiful noise with all-out aggressive indie rock simmered out to perfection; simply put, every track on this masterpiece is refreshing, energetic, and moving. At times, you seep into what the Lustre King has created and forget just where you are -- it's that good. Even more validation for this album comes from the guest vocal slots of two of the best indie rock vocalists around -- the 90 Day Men's Brian Case and the ever-notorious busybody Tim Kinsella, both of whom add indisposed elements of listlessness to their tracks. One of the best and certainly most overlooked releases of 1999, and a definite must-have for any fan of instrumental rock with just the right amounts of experimentation and traditional solid rock.