The Replacements

A retard version of London Calling with the 'Mats using a variety of roots rock styles as springboards for messy throwaways, this showcases a band on the cusp of putting real effort and emotion into it. "Lovelines" proves they can stumble 'n' joke and succeed, while the rocking "Color Me Impressed" and the yearning "Within Your Reach" blueprint their coming style.

Thrashing their guitars or shambling like bumpkins or reading the personals w/musical accompaniment, this young band has a loose, freewheeling craziness that remains miraculously unaffected after three records. They'll try anything--there's even synthesizer percussion on one cut. If the rock and roll spirit is your bottom line, you'll love 'em. But because they play it so loose they do gravitate toward sloppy noise, which means that too often they're more conceptual than a loose, freewheeling rock and roll band ought to be. (Grade - B+)