Pitchfork

Have you ever made out on the Disneyland Haunted Mansion ride? Have you ever had your hands down someone else's pants at the end when the football- helmet- shaped cars turn to the mirror and the ghost mirages seem to appear between your locked lips? Pulp's early work is the soundtrack for such occasions. Before becoming cocktail- swilling pop icons, Pulp were snotty art- school kids. Freaks, Pulp's second album, was released way back in 1986, but it sounds surprisingly like a record that could come out of the current D.C. scene or the seedy clubs of New York.

Pre- glossy- production Pulp were an angular guitar/ bass/ drums/ keyboard kind of group-- no string sections, no backup singers. Stripped down and more prone to be weird than sexy, Pulp came across like a cross between Joy Division, Jonathan Fire*Eater, and the Doors, with Jarvis Cocker's super- deep croon and Candida Doyle's constant, piercing keys. Or perhaps the B-52's twisted little goth brother. The sound is hollow and haunted, eminating from dark basements and smoky clubs. Occasionally, gentle, spare melodies propel Cocker's perverted stories and foreshadow Pulp's chart- topping success.

Modern Britpop fans will wince, but this is the kind of band that could open up for Smart Went Crazy or the Delta 72 at the Black Cat in D.C. and sell seven- inchers to kids in black with Romulan haircuts. While not as obviously listenable as the last three Pulp records, there's a certain provocative charm to these velvety, underground recordings.