The 1980 debut album from Athens, GA's Pylon is just as seminal as Gang of Four's "Entertainment" and PiL's "Metal Box." Danceable, emotive and 30 years ahead of its time, to say that this DFA-endorsed reissue is long overdue would be an understatement! Bonus tracks include the band's first 7-inch, "Cool," their "Pylon" EP, plus the unreleased "Functionality."

Formed in the late 1970s around a core of University of Georgia students, Pylon were pretty instrumental in establishing Athens, GA as a hotbed of bizarre punk rock activity. Supported by new wave darlings the B-52s, Pylon managed a couple of great singles and albums before breaking up (for the first time) in 1983, providing a fundamentally important influence to a then nascent REM, who championed the band pretty hard during their rise to mainstream success. Pylon's sound, however, was a solid mix of slashing guitars and razor sharp rhythms that seemed to be a more nervous, distinctly American analogue to bands like Gang of Four (with whom Pylon played a few shows). Compiling the whole of the band's first couple of singles and their album Gyrate, DFA's new Gyrate Plus compilation does a pretty nifty service for those seeking to fill in the gaps in their American post-punk libraries, collecting the band's most essential early moments onto one handy disc. Kicking off with the dark pound of their debut single "Cool," Gyrate Plus traces the evolution of a solid but sadly unheralded also-ran as they grew into tense rockers like "Feast on My Heart" and "Driving School." Always ones to foreground rhythm, the group managed to transform simple moves like "Weather Radio" and "Danger!!" into unabashed dance anthems, carving out a pretty unique space for themselves in the pantheon of American punk rock in the process. [MC] (October 16, 2007)