Half Dead and Dynamite by Lifter Puller

Half Dead and Dynamite, the 1997 follow-up to Lifter Puller's self-titled record, catches the Minnesota band honing the sound that set them apart: angular riffs, synthesizers buzzing around the edges, a jittery post-punk pulse with a retro sheen that got there years before the early-2000s revival crowd did. Out front, Craig Finn spins stories as much as he sings them.

City Pages pegged him as a wry, bizarre punk poet, and the songs bear it out: tales of teenage trouble, boredom and violence that play out like escape fantasies, some of them told from a half-female point of view. The record spent years out of print along with the rest of their catalogue before coming back in a 2009 reissue. Finn would later carry some of these preoccupations into the Hold Steady.

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