Like Slint's Spiderland, Bitch Magnet's 1990 album Ben Hur was a game-changer in US indie rock, a precisely orchestrated, restless dance of metal squalls, impassioned melody and jazz-tinged drumming whose influence reaches to the present (hello Battles, White Denim, et al). Unlike Spiderland, Ben Hur remains clouded in obscurity. This reissue collection is as taut and focused as the band who made it, working its way backwards from Ben Hur to 1989's Umber and the 1988 EP Star Booty, with minimal extras. The earlier recordings are scuffed and frantic, with Jon Fine's guitar often degenerating into a shapeless thrash. By Umber, however, he sounds as though he's juggling knives, glinting notes spiralling in unpredictable trajectories. Sooyoung Park's bass and Orestes Morfin's drums are equally volatile; rhythms catch and melodies flare as the trio clash and meld. Park's vocal adds to the complexity: one moment subtle and submerged, the next igniting with a roar. On Ben Hur, the fusion is excoriating.