The stunning debut album by one of the most underrated U.K. bands of their age,
Wild and Wandering was released in the wake of three singles, each of which threatened to lift the band to new heights -- but all of which, ultimately, served as nothing more than a dress rehearsal for guitarist
Rocco's next band,
Flesh for Lulu. Darkly atmospheric, but lavished with pop hooks and imagery, its nine songs are a haunted, haunting melange of urban savagery and decadent decay, the passion of the
Velvet Underground shot through the energies of punk in a way that more po-faced wanderers down that same path (
Echo & the Bunnymen,
Joy Division, etc.) could never have imagined. Hindsight may pinpoint the likes of
the Cure and
Bauhaus within its textures, but that is forgetting that
Wasted Youth were feared contemporaries of both, so who really lifted that drum pattern...that vocal inflexion...that guitar riff...from whom? Appended to the original album, five cuts from the posthumous Wasted Youth Live album capture the band in equally devastating form, and the album closes with their skull-churning rendition of "Sister Ray." More studio material would probably have been preferable, but the performances themselves are peerless. As, indeed, is the rest of the album.