Whiskeytown, "16 Days"
Ryan Adams' first foray into country, the first Whiskeytown record is alt-country only in the sense that it wasn't made for pop-country radio. Other than that, it's a country record in every sense. It's a pretty good record, but I don't find it as compelling as other alt-country acts, so it doesn't get played very often.
The Du-Rites, "The Mean Machine"
Among the many reasons to love the Du-Rites is that they produce a steady stream of singles, which all consistently smoke. This is the a-side to one of those 7"s, and come on, that's tasty.
Seam, "Decatur"
The line between the noise that Seam was kicking out and what was coming out of the shoegaze scene is a little hard to define. But I don't think I've ever seen anybody say that this sounds kind of shoegaze-y. But it does! The vocals being lost in the mix, the huge guitars, there's a lot of similar sounds here. Sure, you don't really have the tremelo picking, but whatever. The effect is similar.
You know, for a guy who mentions shoegaze as much as I do, I don't actually listen to much of the uncut stuff.
Unsane, "Committed"
[furiously considering a "noise rock is just downtuned shoegaze" thesis, just to alienate everybody even more]
The Budos Band, "Mas O Menos"
Much better than yesterday, y'all! The Budos Band II is their weakest album, I think, and it's still pretty ferocious. Let's just enjoy this.