Pylon
Gyrate Plus
We don’t usually review 27 year old reissues but Pylon is different. From 1979 to 1983, this Athens, GA band were the “missing link” of the punk family tree. You know, the tree where punk begets post-punk which begets New Wave which begets Dance which begets Electronic. (It’s true that all candy ravers owe some debt of gratitude to Johnny Lydon.) The former University of GA art students mastered the use of space like Gang of Four, but remained harmoniously poppy, akin to Romeo Void. Just as Cobain cited The Pixies as an influence for Nirvana, R.E.M. indebts their success to Pylon, a band well deserved of a reissue and a fine one as this. On this version, the glass shattering guitar and bouyant bass are pristine in a vaccuum as if hermetically sealed in a Ball jar. And while tracks like “Volume” and “Feast On My Heart” share the same dub dance-ability as The Police, there is an edginess from Pylon’s rhythms and feral vocals of Vanessa Briscoe Hay that Sting could never muster. Yet, this is no nostalgia train; the dance beat and punk thrashing still hold up today. With all of today’s critics crowning accolades onto Ian Curtis and the movie “Closer,” Gyrate proves it is possible that the best post-punk band came from the Deep South instead of Manchester, UK. -- Michael Rabinowitz
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