L7

★★★★ Smell The Magic SUB POP. CD/DL/LP The LA noisers find their dream home at the House Of Grunge. L7 opened their second album by gatecrashing a discarded Mudhoney jam, recording over their labelmates’ old tapes in a classic act of Sub Pop cost-cutting. A perfect fit with their new label, their fusion of metallic fuzz and punk-rock attitude signalled their kinship with early grunge. Smell The Magic showcased Suzi Gardner and Donita Sparks’ paint-stripping snarls, a gift for sneaking pop hooks within their butchered biker rock, and a black humour that would serve them well in the years to come. Their cover of the Fiends’ Packin’ A Rod wickedly inverted the original’s repellent violence, while their own Fast And Frightening (“Got so much clit she don’t need no balls”) applied their signature blowtorch wit to dumb rock misogyny. A crossover hit – Pretend We’re Dead – would follow later, but everything that made L7 great was already in place here.