Ahhhh, Unrest. There was a time when Unrest were IT. They could do no wrong. Mark Robinson (Unrest/Teenbeat Records main man) was king of the indie scene. And listening to this record there is no doubt in our minds as to why. While the records before Imperial were sloppy and chaotic (in a good way!) and sort of punk rock, they were also dark and dreamy and sweetly melancholy, all hinting at some doleful sensitive underside, lurking like a shy boy, beneath Unrest's spikey exterior.
So along comes Imperial (originally released in 1992), and it was sort of like that shy boy finally got up the guts to talk to that girl he had been longing for all year, and while she still ignored him, something about reaching that point made him realize he didn't need loud noisy punk rock, or smashing chaos, he could just be himself, and the sound of being himself, finally unveiled on Imperial, managed to suddenly illuminate the pop treasure map Unrest had been following since day one.
All that sweet sweet pop was now the focal point, the foundation, no longer hiding bashfully behind the crash and clang. Gone were the willful snottiness, the distorted guitars, the ramshcakle drumming and in their place, a languid,
lustrous jangle pop shimmer, bathed in reverb, and laced with dreamy soulful crooning, lilting guitar melodies, and sweet sweet hooks, with the ultimate mixtape lyrics. "I Do Believe You Are Blushing" -- I mean, c'mon!! How romantic is that?!
I must fess up that several tracks on Imperial made their way on to many a mix tape. And while a few tracks do 'rock' ("Suki" has to be one of the best rocking pop songs EVER!), it's in that sort of liquidly propulsive Neu! meets Beat Happening sort of way, a droney jangle with repetitive guitars and shuffling rhythms, mesmerizing but a little bouncy too. However, on Imperial, it's all about the blissed out shimmer pop, lazy electric guitars, and distant throbbing bass floating delicately atop a slowly unfurling popscape, simple and absolutely beautiful, with Mark Robinson's gorgeous hearfelt croon as well as the occasional delicate angelic female vocal. So so so so beautiful!
This re-issue also tacks on 8 bonus tracks that, while not included on the original, definitely sound like they could have been placed anywhere throughout the record proper and would have seemed right at home. A massive 13-minute reworking of the title track, stretched out into a druggy, dreamy ambient janglescape slowly shifting from a tripped-out acapella blur to endless instrumental bliss. A trip hoppy version of "Isabel" that sounds just as good as the original; a couple of ambient experiments that add more mystery to Imperial's moodiness; the dirgey slowcore crawl "Wednesday and Proud" and a few others. Inexplicably, they left off the infamous Unrest classic "Yes She Is My Skinhead Girl" which was only on a 7" and was once included as a bonus track on the import version of this record. But that's hardly a complaint when faced with such a stunning slice of pop perfection. Listen to the sound samples and you will understand just what we mean.
- the staff of Aquarius Records
Review
text copyright © 2005 Aquarius Records.
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