Mission of Burma

Remarkable partly for how little their sound has changed in twenty years and partly for how energized and explosive the new songs are, this album's intense, fiery guitars and melodic neurosis are spot-on, track after track. If it sounds familiar, it's because so many have taken Mission Of Burma's template and run with it.

When mission of burma reconvened a few years back for their first live gigs in almost two
decades, generations of college-radio DJs rejoiced. OnOffOn, the band's first studio album
since 1982, shows the Boston quartet hasn't turned its back on the abrasive, high-energy
sound that influenced all kinds of noisy indie rockers. Arty rave-ups such as "Fake Blood"
may read like political manifestoes, but these aging left-wingers are just getting t... More >

Easy for abstractionists to pick up where they left off, hard for them to represent ("Nicotine Bomb," "Fake Blood") (Grade - **)