My Bloody Valentine

Pushing everything they tried on Isn't Anything just a bit further and informed by the influence of a booming ecstasy culture, MBV released this EP driven by the utterly danceable lead-off track, "Soon." They followed it with three tracks that went from harrowing harmonic overload to narcotic pop bliss and set the bar so high, only they could scale it.

The first two cuts all but wordless, the final two murmured in a studio-stoned trance, this is the industrial new age their organlike guitars have always promised--the reliable rhythm of a giant linoleum buffer systematically rubbing the skin off your soul. (Grade - A-)