The Celibate Rifles - The Turgid Miasma Of Existence (1986)

The first recording of new Celibate Rifles material to be released in America. Now fully incorporating acoustic guitars, cellos, zithers, and bass clarinets (!) into the mix, this record is more eclectic than your average Rifles release, but amazingly, there are no false moments, bad songs, or failed experiments. From the opening salvo of "Bill Bonney Regrets" through the hair-raising "Conflict of Instinct" to the sarcastically funny closing track "New Mistakes," this is a simply wonderful record that will sound refreshingly direct and engaging another 15 years from now. Lovelock's lyrics are especially wonderful, running the gamut from terse imagism to comedic tomfoolery to polemical broadsides. The album is dedicated to James Darroch, the original Rifles bass player who left in 1984 to form the great, little-known Eastern Dark (one very good EP, Long Live the New Flesh). Darroch died in a car accident while Miasma was being recorded.