Lush - Spooky

With Lush's first proper full-length, 1992's Spooky, it becomes quite clear that this band possessed the substance to match its style. As part of the wave of British acts that were first slapped with the shoegaze tag—Ride, Slowdive, and Pale Saints among them—Lush's music was naturally defined by its seemingly endless ripples of delay, reverb, flange, and chorus. But the almost-supernatural power of frontwoman/guitarist Miki Berenyi and lead guitarist/vocalist Emma Anderson's vocal harmonies and intertwining guitar work set Lush apart from the shoegaze pack on a number of levels.
After a brief intro, Spooky launches straight into the stratosphere with "Nothing Natural," a pinnacle moment not only for Lush but for shoegaze/alternative across the board. Although Guthrie brings his soft-focus production once again, no amount of sonic soft-pedaling can contain the band's assuredness as it aspires to—and mostly reaches—a beauty so sublime that it pumps you up as much as it takes your breath away. Sure, Lush made melancholy, ethereal music, but such was the band's range during this period that none of the songs on Spooky conform strictly to one mood.
By turns dour, impatient, hopeful, and resigned, the album never runs out of shades. Uptempo numbers like "Laura" and "Superblast!" counterbalance the more reflective moments, which hit hardest on album closer "Monochrome," a song with a swaying underwater groove. In the chorus, Berenyi sings, "And sometimes I think if I stand by the phone it may ring/ And sometimes I worry and fear what tomorrow may bring," her voice drenched in reverb so she sounds less like a human than an apparition. It is one of several moments on Spooky where Lush's music verges on mind-altering.

Ripped from the 1992 CD to MP3

1.       Stray
2.       Nothing Natural
3.       Tiny Smiles
4.       Covert
5.       Ocean
6.       For Love
7.       Superblast!
8.       Untogether
9.       Fantasy
10.   Take
11.   Laura
12.   Monochrome