This is what you'd expect the first Velvet Underground record to sound like if you'd only read reviews from the time: raw, depressive, smack-addled garage rock for a degenerate, anomic civilisation. This record is bathed in an unrelenting cloud of grey noise, 60s reverb-obsession taken to its anti-logical conclusion. Their version of "Eight Miles High" bears about as much resemblance to the original as Husker Du's, taken the sweet out of the Byrd's bittersweet rendition and facing the horrors of Vietnam with blank resignation. The wintry doombeat excursions of "Rainy Starlet" and "Fire Eyes" remind me of Joy Division, with ahead-of-the-curve hippie disillusionment replacing post-punk angst. These guys were from Detroit, an industrial city in decline just like late 70s Manchester. There's definitely a similar noise-loving impulse to The Stooges, those other detroit pre-punk legends, but The Index are about drug-addled introspection rather than Dionysian release.
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