Juvenilia

First released in 1987 and in a more complete edition on CD in 1993, Juvenilia is, perhaps unsurprisingly given the title, a look at the earliest single and EP songs by the Verlaines, another demonstration of 1980s Dunedin’s apparently enchanted ability to produce one amazing band after another in rapid succession. “Death & the Maiden,” more or less the band’s theme song thanks to Graeme Downes’s title choice and the lyrical invocation of the poet Paul Verlaine himself, the steady flow of “Joe’d Out” and the rushed immediacy of “Pyromaniac” are just the tip of the iceberg.