Love and Rockets - Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven (1986)

Though the years have deadened its impact somewhat, there is still a visceral thrill to be drawn from replaying the first Love and Rockets album, a sense of the first step taken towards a brave new world, and a miasmic whirl of psychedelic intent that masks intents even darker than the preceding Bauhaus ever envisioned. Recorded and released in 1985, riding to club acclaim on the back of the "Ball of Confusion" remake, and aligning its makers with a destiny and fame that no one could ever have predicted, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven ranks among the most deceptive debut albums of the 1980s. The keys to the album remain the same, of course -- the churning guitar soup of "The Dog-End of a Day Gone By," the sibilant glam sexuality of the title track, the chilling nursery rhyme pendulum of "The Game." But the opiate atmosphere that chokes the wide open spaces leavened within every song only thickens by the time you hit the closing acoustics of "Saudade," and Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven emerges as profound an experience as any of the lauded trips of the original psychedelic era. It rounds out the experience with dramatic flair, pinpointing the sheer creativity that was sparking around Love and Rockets at the dawn of their decade-long career -- and reminding you that that decade was over all too quickly.