90s Album Reviews

The 1996 album Honeysuckle Strange by Howlin Maggie is abrasive, funky, sarcastic, melodic, and more but never found a mainstream audience

Hit Man Dreams by the underappreciated San Diego band No Knife showcases the band's unique blend of post-hardcore, indie rock, and emo

Let Love In by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is a dark, poetic blend of traditional sounds and art rock, exploring love, loss, and longing

Blind Guardian's 1998 album Nightfall in Middle-Earth is a power metal epic, retelling Tolkien's The Silmarillion with symphonic intensity

Andy Yorke stepped out of the shadow of his well-known brother with the subtle and melodic 1998 album Almost Here by Unbelievable Truth

Psychedelic and dreamy, the 1991 debut Gish by The Smashing Pumpkins give hints of hits to come while still indebted to their influences

Jesus Jones looked into the future, blending alternative rock with electronic rave and techno elements, on their 1993 release Perverse

Raymond Watts combines Ministry's industrial metal with Trent Reznor's ear for atmospherics and melody on the 1996 album Sinsation by Pig

The second album by Magic Dirt conjures psych and desert rock fuzz channeled through sludgy early grunge on Young And Full Of The Devil

On 1994's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement refined their lo-fi sound to write one of the defining albums of 1990s indie rock

The 1999 debut by post-grunge band doubleDrive features well crafted songs that exceed musical expectations saddled with predictable vocals

In 1994 punk exploded into the mainstream with sing-along songs of boredom and anxiety thanks to the Diamond selling Dookie by Green Day

The 1996 album Local by Ho-Hum mines 70s and 80s power pop and new wave with a Midwestern twist for a catchy if overlong debut

Faithless may be best know for their energetic club hit God Is A DJ, but their 1998 album Sunday 8 PM spends more time in downtempo trip hop

Ominous and foreboding, 1998's trip-hop masterpiece Mezzanine by Massive Attack slithers with timeless cool still relevant today

RTFM by Poster Children showcases the post-hardcore band at their best, with catchy and off-kilter songs crafted with clever complexity

90s maxi-singles finally enter the chat as we revisit the club mixes and rare b-sides of the 1990 World In My Eyes single by Depeche Mode

Big Hate features big, buzzing guitars tackling grunge to southern rock on their 1998 sophomore and final release You're Soaking It In

311 were more than just rock plus rap, as evidenced on their 1994 album Grassroots, featuring progressive twists and psychedelic jam turns

The Dwarves Are Young and Good Looking marks a high for the provocative punk band that knows how to craft one and two minutes pop-punk gems

Following the tragedy that struck For Squirrels, the remaining members regrouped as Subrosa with 1997's Never Bet The Devil Your Head

On our latest Diamond Episode, we revisit the 1995 hit-single filled juggernaut album that was Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette

Thirty years after release, The Downward Spiral remains one of the 90s most enduring creative statements and thematic concept albums

Buffalo Tom matured as musicians and songwriters on their third album Let Me Come Over from 1992 to produce a timeless alternative classic

Following the dissolution of Galaxie 500, Damon and Naomi further explore the melancholy sounds of dream pop and slowcore on More Sad Hits

The 1998 album Tip by Finger Eleven showcases the beginnings of their big riff, post-grunge sound that would rise to prominence in the 2000s

Beloved by some and hated by others, we revisit one of the most successful albums in history - Cracked Rear View by Hootie & the Blowfish

Quirky, charming, and whimsical - the debut Marvin the Album by Frente! could not have been more out of step with the sound of 1992

On 1994's Foolish, Superchunk released their darkest album paired with raw and intense performance that helped define indie rock in the 90s

Muse infused their 1999 album Showbiz with elements of classical, Latin, jazz and more with the bombast of Queen for a truly unique debut

On the 1993 INXS album Full Moon, Dirty Hearts the 80s hit-makers added grittier sounds and thicker production with some unexpected guests

On their 1997 sophomore album In It for the Money, Supergrass arguably made the most interestingly consistent album of the Britpop era

The Glorious Couch Life by Pollen synthesizes American and Australian indie rock sounds and attitude into a catchy debut album

Dredg debuted in 1999 with Leitmotif, a post-hardcore, progressive and nu-metal tinged album that's thick on ideas but thin on execution

The Lemonheads find the perfect combination of melodic and musical sweet 'n sour on the 1992 album It's A Shame About Ray

Sinéad O'Connor explores motherhood, family, political and social issues on the introspective and emotionally charged album Universal Mother