Given everything that followed after this album it’s almost like it’s a band with an alternate career that’s captured here, a UK quintet that thanks to a near-ubiquitous fluke hit of a single, the perfect alt rock melodrama of knowing self-pity that is “Creep,” might have become a one-hit wonder. Funny thing is that Pablo Honey, while a somewhat choppy listen, is still the work of a band that had been together for years already as teenagers, and songs like the riffing snark of “Anyone Can Play Guitar” and the rather poisonous ballad “Lurgee” showed their talent.

– Ned Raggett