Album: Pere Ubu <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

The Modern Dance, IMMERGENT

From the piercing whine that opens "Non-Alignment Pact" to the poignant finale of "Humor Me", Pere Ubu's industrial avant-rock masterpiece The Modern Dance is one of the most thrilling experiences in rock'n'roll, in its way as great an affirmation of the notion of pop-album-as-artwork as Pet Sounds and Blonde On Blonde. Released in 1978, and reissued here accompanied by a 5.1 surround-sound mix, it is one of few wholly successful examples of expressionist rock. Although lumped in with the contemporary punk movement, Cleveland's Pere Ubu were more like the furthest extension of the art-rock genre: their sound, they suggested, was an attempt to realise the human form in music, with bass and drums as heartbeat and muscles, the whines and white noise of Allen Ravenstine's synthesiser the nervous system, and so on. Equally extraordinary were David Thomas's vocals, conveying those corners of the emotional spectrum rarely seen in pop - despair, awe, boredom, anger, exasperation, alongside the usual sadness and joy. Uneasy listening even then, its impact is just as powerful today.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Non-Alignment Pact', 'The Modern Dance', 'Street Waves', 'Chinese Radiation', 'Real World'