Lineage Situation
What an album. Lineage Situation offers two full discs (that's 40 tracks and two hours of material!) of rowdy pummel-core and intricate post-Slint rock from the defunct band (not an individual as the name might suggest) Neil Perry. With four previously unreleased tracks (including "Nine Minutes of Non-fiction," which go from a screamo blueprint to pure Spiderland-era Slint) and scads of live material, this is the definitive collection from a band that should have had a much larger cult following. Still, Neil Perry's relative obscurity gives the beautifully packaged anthology from Level-Plane even more of a gem-like quality -- it's simply astounding that this group didn't garner more attention during its existence. The reason is obvious -- much of the material would be a challenge to anyone who doesn't appreciate aggressive hardcore, and the rest is steeped in the magnificently alienating structures of post-rock. But that is what is simply so amazing about this band -- its ability to excel at both old-school, metal-inspired hardcore ("Kicked" and "Looking Back on the Way You Want to Be in the Future"), and dazzling instrumental complexity -- often both in the same song (take "What Is In the Making," for example). In the end, Neil Perry stands as a shocking monument to cross-pollinating two of the most challenging genres in rock, and doing it with drama, flair, and pure basement punk theatrics.