Alpaca Brothers - Legless (1984)

On their sole Flying Nun album, this avant- punk trio created a paranoid and edgy brand of rock similar to labelmates the Gordons and Bill Direen. This recording from '84 is a precursor to their later incarnation in the '90s as Trash, where they continued to sound like a combination of the Velvet Underground and Motorhead as they had defined it a decade earlier. "Legless" is antipodean slang for drunkenness, and the wall of Joy Division-like guitar noise cascade and skittering propulsive rhythm is certainly intoxicating. A post-punk obscurity that holds up over time as one of the more muscular releases on the Flying Nun label, a stable where delicacy and sophistication flourishes in the indie guitar world, it is curious that throughout the years would throw out wild card like this. Having the angular energy of Gang of Four style art punk, this is anomaly in the catalog along with the Dead C's "D.R.503."