Which is, of course, exactly what it was. From the opening notes you could feel the sheer sense of Joy Division especially playing around the sonics -- the crispness of the drums, the echoing of the vocals, the keyboard shades creeping up out of nowhere at points. Almost all you needed further was some breaking glass. Duritti Column, the Chameleons, a bit of the Comsat Angels, the debts were all there.
But that is as nothing now, especially. Knowing the astonishing, jaw-dropping, frankly humbling heights to which they would eventually reach, In Debt doesn't suffer by comparison, it just simply is what it is, a band finding its way, only a band so immediately much more willing and ready to tackle the expected bounds, what was expected of them. 1990 and the world is all gazing away or trying to be Madchester in their indie rock neck of the woods. They just hunkered down, plugged in, wore their outsiders' badges like shields and created only some of the most accomplished music anyone had ever done, period. No arguments.
The first tracks on this compilation are understandably the most in hock and therefore the least interesting as a result. Except, again, they were just so darned good, "Entertainment," "Arc In Round," the hollow force of "Broken." But then "Émigré" kicks in and the band's first truly brilliant moment hits you with full impact, the endless delay and chime of the guitars, the push of the bass, the way the drums play around the central beat but don't maintain it throughout, Ian Crause's voice invoking whatever weirdly beautiful images he would care to conjure up in his head, until a minute to go and everything just takes off, a perfectly simple yet impossible to describe guitar line ripping through the heavens, the drums suddenly more pounding even as they are mixed back just so, and I want to hang my head at how just plain lucky I am to hear such beauty.
And everything keeps connecting from there on in, track by track you can hear the reach of ambition, about how the band realize that more can be done and don't stop -- they just keep doing it. "Leisuretime" and its background chimes and gentle breaks and perfect, scalpel-sharp riffs, "Hope to God" with its unexpected acoustic guitar, soft whines and moans in the background breaking up the flow just enough, "Bleed Clean" relentlessly moving, snarling without actually having to as Crause softly sings "Do you bleed clean…or does your blood flow in a mess?" And you hear them start to embrace sampling and the possibilities, and the way the bells accentuate the rhythm in "Next in Line" is both basic and lovely.
Then there's "Waking Up," with perhaps the most perfect beginning to a song ever, bass notes echoing into the infinite, unidentifiable noises deep below, then Crause flatly stating "A sky without a god is a clear blue sky." Or I could mention how "Fallen Down the Wire" turns into a combination of musical and lyrical aggression that makes The Holy Bible seem tame all while maintaining a certain cool distance. Or so forth and so on.
And to think it just kept getting even better from there on in. Amazing.