Unrest – Perfect Teeth (30th Anniversary Edition)

Bowing out at their creative peak, Perfect Teeth is the wonderful final album by American 90s indie rock greats Unrest.

Having just clocked 30 years, 4AD and the band are revisiting it to present the album remastered. Borrowing their name from a Henry Cow record, Unrest formed in 1983 at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia.

Beginning as an improv instrumental band, they were soon perfecting genre-hopping eclecticism and issuing recordings. Their last album, Perfect Teeth was recorded in the Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, MN, in early 1993, mere days after Nirvana completed In Utero in the very same space.

Review

Unrest's final and best album is both jangling and lush, and covers many styles of pop music. "Angel, I'll Walk You Home" is filled with pristine vocal harmonies, while "Cath Carroll" is flashy, thrashy punk-pop. "Light Command" is wistful and triumphant. "Breather X.O.X.O." is majestically melancholy, and "West Coast Love Affair" is breezy and tongue-in-cheek. Unrest's experimental and pop leanings come together with terrific success on Perfect Teeth, making it a high point in the band's too-brief recording career. - Allmusic