Icky Mettle by Archers of Loaf

Icky Mettle, the debut album from Chapel Hill's Archers of Loaf, came out on Alias in 1993, and it sounds every bit as scrappy as its budget. Caleb Southern produced and engineered it at Kraptone Studios in the band's hometown, and the whole thing was tracked and mixed in seven days for, by Eric Bachmann's reckoning, about $5,000.

That haste is the point. Bachmann hollers himself hoarse while he and Eric Johnson set their guitars at cross purposes, all skronk, lurch and sour, twisted melody, and Matt Gentling and Mark Price keep the whole wobbly contraption barreling forward. "Web in Front" is the one that stuck, a burst of noise-pop that never outstays its welcome. Merge gave the album a deluxe reissue in 2011, the same year the band got back together on the road.

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