Upside Down Rhino****

In hindsight, there was nothing remotely insurrectional about the Reid brothers' stumble into the limelight in the mid-1980s, but it certainly felt revolutionary at the time. A set of bad-ass outcasts high on squalling feedback, sulky poses and black-clad menace, they looked – and sounded – as if they didn't know what they were doing. That the Reids and various hired hands found the momentum to sustain a couple of albums was surprising, but it was just as unexpected to see the JAMC become unlikely regents on pop's wilder frontiers. Upside Downfollows their trajectory from noisy, snarling oiks (the Psychocandyyears) through to darker days (1987's Darklandsalbum) and on to the years when they were besotted with American pop culture ( Stoned & Dethroned). It also shows that a lot can sometimes be achieved by running, head first, into a wall of sound. See rhino.com

Download tracks: Never Understand, Just Like Honey, Reverence