3. La Mia Vita Violenta (1995)

It starts with a rally-call: Album-opener “I Am Taking Out My Eurotrash (I Still Get Rocks Off)” is perhaps the band’s most straightforward rock cut – bellowing drums, rhythmic riffs, chugging bass (supplied by Enon’s Toko Yasuda) – yet is the undeniable proof that the band does standard issue with the burnish of a punk from outer space. Makino coos and wails with intermittent vocal support from Amedeo, bolstering the complement of her fragile voice to the buttery richness of his. And Simone delivers one of their most lulling drum beats while still smashing the utter shit out of his kit. It’s unfuckwithable. Elsewhere they experiment with sitar on the goosebump-inducing “Harmony,” deal with complicated romance and death wishes on the nuanced “Violent Life,” and deliver visceral short cuts with “I Am There While You Choke On Me” and “Young Neil.” The band was still new at the time, and even though they were still under the tutelage of Shelley at Smells Like Records, the self-produced album is a marker for what is classically, but uniquely, Blonde Redhead.