Nearly eight years before Unwound cobbled together arguably the early 2000’s densest indie album with mellotron, synth and violin (’01’s Leaves Turn Inside You), and after releasing a debut album, Unwound was still a methodically scrappy, nihilist, post-hardcore band out of Olympia, Washington. The Numero Group label has decided to reissue the band’s two albums released in this time period in the Rat Conspiracy compilation (the rest of their discography is also being released in chronological order in other box sets) along with a 10,000-word journal on that era of the band’s history and a bonus disc of demos and singles, and they have done so beautifully.

From the corrosive and grimy guitar chords opening the increasingly hysteric and charged riff of “Dragnalus” on 1993’s Fake Train to the slow-burning album closer “Fiction Friction” of 1994’s New Plastic Ideas, Numero has resurrected some of the greatest noise-punk gems of the ’90s on this compilation, along with additional nuggets for true fans and in-depth accompanying literature.
If you think ’90s alternative rock was the pinnacle of rock-and-roll, but believe Nirvana was about just as punk as the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band and Sonic Youth’s production was too polished, then this box set might appeal to you.