Pennsylvania
Pere Ubu began life as an art-punk outfit from Ohio that were able to perfectly pull off their artistic pretensions because they never forgot how to rock. Eventually, they got caught breathing their own fumes and dissipated their attack. Sometime in the late '80s they reformed and pulled it back together with all the elements in tight focus: synthesizer blips and bleeps, guitar noise, and David Thomas's tweedy-bird whine discussing the destruction of America one parking lot and shopping mall at a time.Pennsylvaniais their 11th album and sounds like what you'd expect a late '90s Pere Ubu album to sound like. The occasional hook, an overriding sense of doom and plenty of artsy-fartsy noise. --Rob O'Connor