Weapon Modern

"I'll Melt With You" will forever be the one specific moment that's Modern English's place in pop history, but the album it came from, After the Snow, isn't anything to sneeze at. Indeed, in transforming from the quite fine but dour young miserabilists on Mesh & Lace to a brighter incarnation that still had a melancholy side, the quintet found exactly the right combination best suited for their abilities. Like contemporaries B-Movie and the Sound, Modern English used punk and post-punk roots as a chance to introduce a haunting, beautiful take on romance and emotion, while the contributions of Stephen Walker on keyboard helped make the album both of its time and timeless. That said, the secret weapon on the album is the rhythm section of Michael Conroy and Richard Brown, able to shift from the polite but relentless tribal beat clatter on the excellent "Life in the Gladhouse" to the ever more intense punch of the title track, the album's unheralded masterpiece.