New Radiant Storm King

Noise pop trio New Radiant Storm King have survived more than their share of tribulations in the indie rock world, including defections of key members, geographical dislocation, and the collapse of more than one label. However, the Amherst, MA-based trio's music has gained in depth and feeling where many of their '90s lo-fi brethren stagnated in diffident irony. New Radiant Storm King formed in 1990, when their members were students at Hampshire College. The original lineup was singer and bassist Peyton Pinkerton, singer and guitarist Matt Hunter, second guitarist Eli Miller, and drummer Elizabeth Sharp. Sharp and Pinkerton had made the decision to start their own group while on tour with another local band, taking their new group's name from the radiator in the basement where they decided to strike out on their own. The newly formed group gigged around Amherst (at the time something of an indie rock hotbed, with Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh the leading lights of the local scene), opening for visiting stars like Nirvana and tackling odder chores like providing the music for a play performed by a local theater company. The quartet recorded a full album, One Day Rust, for Rough Trade Records in 1992, but the label imploded just before the scheduled release. (These tracks, along with the 25-minute instrumental recorded for the play and various odds and ends, were collected on The Castle, a bonus disc that was packaged with Wormco's reissue of their eventual debut album in 1998.) Disappointed with the Rough Trade situation, Miller left the band in 1992. Continuing as a trio, Pinkerton, Hunter, and Sharp recorded My Little Bastard Soul without a label and eventually shopped the completed tapes to the tiny indie Axis Records, which finally released the album in 1993 -- and...