JUVENILIA: REVIEWS

A collection of the Verlaines' early offerings, Juvenilia is an apt title, since it captures the band's first stabs at forming a marriage between highbrow art and just thrashing around. From the start, singer Graeme Downes had grand ideas that set him apart from most of his punk-pop peers. A classically trained musician who knew his way around Rimbaud was certainly not typical pop star fodder in the late '70s.

Juvenilia brings together a number of EP's recorded primarily in the late '70s and early '80s. "Death and the Maiden" and "Joed Out" find the band at their most raw but also reveal Downes' literacy and high aspirations. Far from penning formulaic three chord rave-ups, Downs expanded the pop-punk palette to include cellos, horns, etc. and, last but not least, his own gloomy narrative voice (a factor that would characterize so much of the Verlaines' later material).

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