Imperial f.f.r.r. (Deluxe Edition)

Rate It! Avg: 4.5 (49 ratings)
Imperial f.f.r.r. (Deluxe Edition) album cover
Album Information
EDITOR'S PICK

Total Tracks: 20   Total Length: 78:12

eMusic Review 0

Avatar Image
Douglas Wolk

eMusic Contributor

Douglas Wolk writes about pop music and comic books for Time, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Wired and elsewhere. He's the author of Reading Comics: How Gra...more »

05.18.10
Part fantastically urgent, sexed-up rockers, part hypnotic sound experiments, and a couple of ringers
Label: Teenbeat / IODA

Unrest were Teenbeat majordomo Mark Robinson's first and most famous band. They went through multiple incarnations in their first seven years of existence, but the "classic" lineup (which reunited in 2005 and 2010) was Robinson, bassist/singer Bridget Cross and drummer Phil Krauth. 1992's Imperial f.f.r.r. — named after the high-fidelity slogan on old London Records releases — was their high-water mark: part fantastically urgent, sexed-up strum-and-drum rockers like "Cherry Cream On," part hypnotic sound experiments, and a couple of ringers, like the heartbreaking Cross-sung "June." This reissue appends a handful of demos, sketches and single sides, including the two-minute "Hydrofoil One," which sometimes went on for half an hour in concert.

Write a Review 2 Member Reviews

Please register before you review a release. Register

user avatar

Less Really Can Be More

DeadlyTango

1. The AllMusic review is WRONG to call Imperial the band's "full-length debut" -- how about 4th full-length album, setting aside the cassettes? 2. Less genre-hopping made Imperial the first end-to-end "consistent" Unrest album. It captured (and transcended) a necessary moment of the early 90s east coast pop universe. A must-have.

user avatar

Quintessential Unrest

Evil.2win

Start here, oh wayward neophytes!

Recommended Albums

eMusic Features

0

Anagrams

By Maris Kreizman, Audiobooks Editor

"Anagrams" is the name of one of my favorite books - it's clever and heart-wrenching at the same time.I like sad songs you can dance to, and I like sad songs you can cry to. I like girl groups and electro-pop and Brit pop and twangy torch songs. I'm still haunted by some of the songs that I was obsessed with when I was a kid. I think "twee" and "deep" are not mutually exclusive. more »

0

10 Essential Teenbeat Albums

By Douglas Wolk, eMusic Contributor

In 1985, Mark Robinson was a very ambitious high school student in Arlington, Virginia, with a noisy half-joke of a band called Unrest and a fascination with the British label Factory Records (and their habit of giving everything in sight a catalogue number). He launched his own label, Teenbeat, to put out cassettes of his friends 'music and his own. By the early '90s, Unrest had evolved into a thrilling indie-pop band, and Teenbeat had… more »

They Say All Music Guide

Imperial f.f.r.r. is Unrest’s full-length debut. It fleshes out the pop promise of their early singles, and expands on their pop and experimental background as well. “I Do Believe You Are Blushing,” “Cherry Cream On,” “Suki,” “Isabel,” and “June” are still some of the band’s best songs, mixing high-energy guitars and subjects like girls and death to infectious effect. A near-perfect album of indie pop. [The deluxe edition includes nine tracks not included on the original U.S. release.] – Heather Phares