This 3-EPs-style debut/compilation puts the initial releases in reverse order, newest-to-oldest. It's an odd choice, but shoegaze was the new hotness - maybe leading off with Sweetness and Light's (well-named!) shimmering cooing was the right marketing move, frontloading the record with its most relevant stuff.
But those're the tracks that have aged the worst, sounding cookie-cutter by now. Mad Love's scathing guitars and shiny physicality are much more immediate and compelling, and by the time we get the Scar-based second half things have gotten downright ragged, gossamer feathers dropping off the skin.
Grudgingly, it's actually a lot more compelling as a listen this way.
Whatever order you put them in, the songs make strange bedfellows. There's a fullthroated commitment to pure-jangle-etherial-mewing, and then there's not, just an angrier skeleton of the sound.
As a bridge between the old and new guards of all-the-guitars smokescreens, this's essential for students of the early 90's rock, but a little too scattershot and too-familiar for extended modern listening 3.5/5
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