Fugazi - Red Medicine (1995)

The fans are like a cult. And the cult that surrounds Fugazi must be one of the maddest in the history of rock. The hardcore scene's grand masters of Straight Edge (no booze, no drugs!), the Washington quartet has taken the genre to strange new places. On this fourth album from June 1995, released on Dischord, Ian Mac Kaye and friends took on dub (Version), angular rock (Combination Lock) and even ballads (Forensic Scene). And to reassure the most concerned long-time fans, we have classic Fugazi at their most biting and bloody (Downed City, Back To Base). Combining the worldviews of Public Image Ltd., The Fall et Black Flag, Red Medicine is the most beautiful, most menacing door onto the rock’n’roll of the 1990s. Hardcore was reaching the age of reason, and consolidating its neurons like never before.