Stranded In The Mystery Zone

Easily one of the most influential garage bands to come out of the Pacific Northwest in the late '80s and '90s, Dead Moon were also one of the most obscured. While hugely successful alternative acts covered their songs and dropped their name in interviews, they quietly forged their own path and released their own albums for 20 years, embodying the D.I.Y. spirit to the point of mastering their releases on their own record-cutting lathe. Stranded in the Mystery Zone, released in 1991, was the trio's sixth album in four years, and up to that point the most passionate display of the band's guts, misery, joy, and drive. Bare-bones as anything and presented in gloriously complex mono sound, songs like "Jane" and "Clouds of Dawn" come off like lost practice tapes from especially electric 13th Floor Elevators rehearsals, while the slower "Pain for Pretty" shares its glowering moodiness with fellow Portland-area punks the Wipers. ~ Fred Thomas