Third / Sister Lovers [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

Big Stars' previous record Radio City was the one packed with all the hits, "September Girls", "Back Of A Car" etc. Only there weren't any hits. In fact the record didn't sell very well at all. On paper it was the perfect collection of FM friendly anthems which should've catapulted songwriter Alex Chilton into the big league, but due to record label indifference and other circumstances Big Stars' name remained a footnote.

It was against this backdrop of hostility and doubt that that Big Star entered the studio to record their haunting, final (not counting 2005's lacklustre "In Space") effort.

Due to contractual wrangles and the eventual break-up of Big Star the album was never given an official release and so it is unclear as to the track-listing Chilton originally intended. As such the CD release is schizophrenic, which may or may not add to its appeal depending on ones' tastes. It probably features outtakes which were not intended for inclusion.

This dichotomy however is not entirely due to the posthumous nature in which this collection was compiled. Chilton throughout his messy, sporadic career has released rampantly uncommercial and wilfully self-destructive music and this record seems to be where the seeds of this deconstruction were sown.

Book ended against pleasant cuts such as "Kizza Me" and "Thank You Friends" which would've fitted nicely on either of their previous releases sit unrelentingly bleak tracks such as "Holocaust". This spooky, unsettled, funereal mood returns again and again as the record progresses creating an overall sense of extreme discomfort. Bravely "Third/SisterLovers" disregards the accessibility which could've made Big Star popular in favour of something far more challenging and unproven. This is Chilton's masterpiece, the last thing he ever did which is worth listening to. It's flawed in places and probably self-indulgent too but that doesn't detract from the many fascinating highlights that are scattered throughout it.

Tucked towards the end there is a song called "Dream Lover" which is so delicate and fragile in its spectral construction that at any given moment it seems to be teetering on the brink of imminent self-collapse. It has no discernible beat, the lyrics don't say very much and at times the musicians appear to be playing different tunes at different times and yet, for reasons I can't fathom, this curious and indefinable piece of music may be one of the most beguiling and beautiful things I've ever heard.

This is the excellent 1992 Rykodisc reissue of the classic cult album from 1975 that has to rank as one of the darkest albums in rock'n'roll history.

Alex Chilton and what remained of Big Star from #1 Record/Radio City (their first brilliant releases)- Jody Stephens and producer Jim Dickinson crafted this bleak masterpiece. It opens with Kizza Me, which feels like a thousand come downs and is a manic song between Don't Lie to Me & David Bowie's Aladdin Sane (the sinister piano particularly). Thank You Friends is as great as any prime sleaze period Stones (Let it Bleed to Exile on Main St), also quite close to the ragged Neil Young of Tonight's the Night/Time Fades Away&On the Beach...Big Black Car is where the maudlin balladeering kicks in, a valium fade of a song. Jesus Christ is a classic song, as many hooks as earlier songs like In the Street & September Gurls. The subject feels very odd & you're reminded that lots of people commit suicide at Christmas...

Next is a cover of The Velvet Underground's Femme Fatale, which is quite out there when you realise the Velvets were as cult as Big Star are at this point in time (similarly Bowie & Roxy Music were influenced by Lou & co). The backing vocals by Lesa Aldredge are lovely...O, Dana is a mid paced pop song, with strange Peter Hook-styled bass. Just as you think the album isn't as dark as its reputation suggests, there comes Holocaust.

I have known this song since the early 1990's when I heard This Mortal Coil's version from It'll End in Tears (sung by the brilliant Howard Devoto), the lyrics are probably as bad as it gets. This is the sound of mental torture. It makes me think of suicidal actresses like Jean Seberg & Anna Karina, oh so bleak. I think the chorus sums up the joke of human existence, still Chilton continued and survived- which I think is the point. The final line is probably the best line in a song ever: "you're a holocaust"- rather than flirting with the final solution, Chilton alludes to the absolute horror and the kind of destruction that there are no words for as a metaphor for the low's detailed here. The sparse feel of the song is a fitting mood for the great Kangaroo (also covered by This Mortal Coil & later by Jeff Buckley), which conversely has one of the greatest opening lines ever- "I first saw you/you had on blue jeans"- which feels as great as the prose of Denis Johnson or a film like Last Tango in Paris...

...Stroke it Noel lets the light back in, gorgeous falling strings whose influence is more than apparent on REM albums like Automatic for the People. Jody Stephens offers the brilliant For You, which is a great pop song and could easily sit on earlier BS albums (though I think it has a White Album feel). You Can't Have Me returns to the sound of the first two songs, with experimental synth reminiscent of Baba O'Riley-Who. This is a relative of songs like The Smiths' Paint a Vulgar Picture & Nirvana's Rape Me...The sublime acoustic Nightime is up next and opens almost a mini-suite of resigned transcendent songs (think Nick Drake, think Mark Eitzel, think Will Oldham)- with Blue Moon (too great for words) and the closing Take Care- there is an idea of hope. Somewhere...

This edition comes with not only a great cover (and shouts of appreciation to This Mortal Coil, The Posies & Teenage Fanclub amongst others) but five bonus tracks. Dream Lover is odd stuff, not far from Dennis Wilson's Fallin' in Love in feel, while Downs is a song that Chilton is rumoured to have sabotaged for any commercial possibilities it may have had (not very apprent here). Then there are three covers- Nature Boy, 'Till the End of the Day & Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On- which feel like Chilton trying to go back to that place where The Box Tops came from (and not being able). The Jerry Lee Lewis cover sounds like a very black joke.

Third/Sister Lovers is a brilliant album, this edition the definitive version thus far- though if it's reissued again, can we have a lyric sheet please?

So you think you're Alex Chilton, but you might not be sure what that means any more.

Once upon a time your baby just wrote you a letter (when your baby was Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham) and you were the blue-eyed-soul singer of teen pop sensation The Box Tops (The Letter, Cry Like A Baby, Soul Deep). That wasn't good enough for you: you're being told what to do far too much, your manager won't get off your back and you only get to record your own songs for album fillers and b-sides to singles.

So you quit The Box Tops, and hang out in New York trying to get a solo career going (where you meet one of your heroes Roger McGuinn, but don't really know what to say to him). Then you head back to your home town of Memphis with your songs, which you record but no-one releases (until 1997: the brilliantly-titled '1970'). You meet an old friend Chris Bell who has a band called IceWater. You join, rehearse, write and record. you change the name to Big Star. You come up with 'No.1 Record': the critics call it a brilliant debut but the Ardent Records' distribution arrangements are so bad, nobody can buy it. You split up, and then reunite for a critic's convention one-off. It goes so well you get back together again, and record another album 'Radio City', during which Chris Bell quits (thinking you've nicked all the credit). Once again, the critics rave. Once again, nobody can get hold of a copy. You do some gigs as a three-piece (see 'Big Star Live' and 'Nobody Can Dance'), but these don't help.

You also start drinking heavily and taking a lot of drugs. You are not-a-little pissed off about things.

So you go back into the studio with local hero Jim Dickinson as producer. All that really remains of Big Star is you and drummer Jody Stephens, and others come in to help pretty much ad hoc.

The sessions are a sprawling mess. The songs are a good reflection of your anger, despair and contempt. This is uneasy listening: it is basically the soundtrack to a person on the brink of cracking up (totally different from Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' musically, but really close emotionally).

The songs have a fragile intensity to which words can't really do justice. They range from the stately, stoned contempt of 'Holocaust' to the bouncy, libertine teasing of 'You Can't Have Me' and then manic, almost contemptuous sprint through the Killer's 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On'. And you find time to go back to the part-inspiration for the Big Star sound (British Invasion) with a canter through The Kinks' 'All Day And All Of The Night'. The playing is superb when it wants to be and beautifully sloppy when it doesn't care. The production does the whole thing justice.

This album is probably more full of pain and anger than beauty (on the first Big Star albums, these elements are more closely balanced). It's often described as Alex Chilton's first solo album, but it's still recognisably related to the other Big Star records.

Proving true to form, the record company didn't release it for three years.

This isn't a flawed masterpiece. It's a messy masterpiece. You should start with the first two albums (now available on one CD), but then if you like them you should definitely get this to find out how the story ends.