28th Day | Burnsite | Bring out Your Dead | 1985

28th Day – ’Burnsite’ taken from the mini-LP on (Bring Out Your Dead Records 2047-1) 1985

28th Day | Burnsite | Bring out Your Dead | 1985 | 28th DAY are part of the R.E.M. generation, and they should be proud of it! Along with Paul Costain’s “Halo”, this trio’s “25 Pills” is one hit that R.E.M. will never record—a drug anthem for the ’80s hitched to bloodvessel-busting guitars and one of those peculiar irresistible pop hooks that the Athens National Monument write in their sleep.

What elevates them from the chaff is that they’re rough, and producer Russ Tolman‘s rustic approach has bludgeoned this out of them. If it’s possible to believe, the results are flabbergastingly fresh. “Burnsite” blows all comparisons out the window, a totally warped attempt at a trad-dad supernatural ballad. Trees fans take note: Barbara Manning drags folk music screaming into 1985 with dizzying, gory adeptness and Cole Marquis unwinds guitar strings in unparalleled Eastern modal fashion to show off his chops as a guitarist with a mission: Karl Precoda had better look out.

There just has to be something in the air up there in Northern California to keep producing bands of this calibre. Maybe the crimson geese on the cover know the answer. (Sounds, 1985)