new introductory bit here.

This is a reviews page based on my own collection, which just keeps growing despite itself. If it isn't listed here, it's because I don't own it yet, or I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Also, bother your local "new rock" radio station and make sure they are playing "new rock" and not "Rock the Casbah," which is not new.

note: entries in red text indicate my pick for the artist's best available album. A gold numeral indicates the POPocalypse winner of the year's best album; second- and third-place winners are in blue. Green lettering indicates an obviously exploitative record company compilation without apparent artist input.

Liverpool's Heart Throbs, a band initially fronted by the two sisters of the late Echo & the Bunnymen drummer Pete De Freitas, never found the national success of the Bunnymen, and a mid-period personnel shakeup left them crippled.

Signed to One Little Indian Records and distributed in America by Elektra, Cleopatra Grip found considerable college radio support for the single "Dreamtime," which best captured their sound. Ethereal, dreamlike and chiming, they charted similar territory as Lush and My Bloody Valentine, but with Rose Carlotti's lead vocals far more prominently mixed. Shortly afterwards, the band imploded ("Fleetwood Mac style," according to their press), and Rose led a revamped lineup into 1992's Jubilee Twist, a fine album which again found little interest outside the college media.

Their final album Vertical Smile was apparently unreleased in the US, but the lead single "Worser" is evidence of more upbeat and simple pop. The lead track sports a downer of a lyric but lots of la-la-las as well. The Heart Throbs called it quits soon afterwards.