Eleventh Dream Day – Riot Now! – Thrill Jockey - ??? - ***

Of all the brilliant bands that never broke, Chicago's Eleventh Dream Day are perhaps the unluckiest. Playing Neil Young goes garage burnouts in the Eighties deadzone, pre-grunge and post-punk, their eponymous 1987 album is an all time great debut.
Their first record in five years maintains altitude whilst rarely soaring. Former lieutenants departed, Rick Rizzo lacks a foil for the group's trademark twin lead guitar firewalls on raging riffs that smoulder where once they would have smoked.

But Away With Words, a slow, pensive number, underscored by Doug McCombs' cautiously melodic bass, equals anything in their back catalogue.

(20/3/11)