or Against seem to be one of those Unlucky Bands destined to never get the recognition they deserve; much like their gloom-merchant forebears the Comsat Angels, their early records are masterpieces of that particular brand of chorus-pedals-and-sulking post-punk that are inexplicably overlooked in favour of bands who are about 12% as good as them. Certainly the timing of their 1987 debut Echelons (reissued last year) was a little unfortunate, arriving as it did a couple of years too late for the downbeat post-punk party (and in Nebraska). It's a good record, if a little in thrall to its Chameleons/Joy Division template, but the following year's December was a colossal leap forward.

By this stage of the band’s career, it wasn’t so much a case of For Against having an aptitude for the robotic drums and echoing guitars thing as having gained a total mastery of the whole dynamic; while near-superhumanly bleak in lyrical tone, musically December exhibits this knack for timing every little minor flourish to perfection. Each chiming guitar line and hi-hat-rattling fill (drummer Greg Hill warrants particular mention for sounding throughout like some kind of insane three-handed robot) propels things along perfectly towards whatever grandiose change of direction is coming up to exhilarating effect.

“Sabres” announces its arrival with a quick drum roll and six chiming chords, and then just tears off on a beautifully incessant climbing guitar line while Jeff Runnings' vocal, still frail but more clear and striking than on Echelons, outlays his plan to sort his life out and get someone or other back before the end of November. I'm unclear how much narrative continuity there's supposed to be between the songs, but later on the title track it seems the plan's gone pretty badly awry, as he's now moping round alone, staring at Christmas displays in shop windows and pining. Sonically, “December” bears perhaps their most pronounced resemblance to the Comsat Angels, beginning with a menacing droned bassline reminiscent of “Gone,” taking in a strangled Steve Fellows-like guitar solo, and by the end picking up into a manic gallop like the intense outro of “Dark Parade.” Where the latter cheerily evokes parched desert landscapes and mutilated corpses, “December” is all ice and mundane urban loneliness.

One song later and things are even worse, as Runnings is shouting, “Who has the last laugh?/Give me my life back!” and accusing his apparently batshit other half of giving him a breakdown. There's quite a sulkily vindictive streak to the lyrics at times (“Here are some matches to play with/Don't call me by my first name”), but even as they increasingly seem to chronicle a descent into gibbering non-sequitur-laden madness, the music's generally brooding tone is still infused with an inexplicably ecstatic quality; the "a million thank-yous / Christmas is nonsense" tangent in the aforementioned “Last Laugh” is a case in point, and “They Said” moves in the direction of being slightly too early for dream-pop rather than too late for post-punk, its jangly guitars and scared-of-success lyrics giving way to a rapturous instrumental outro.

The drawn-out coda is put to good use throughout; it's something For Against finally totally perfected 14 years later on “Coalesced,” a song that closes with a near-infinitely recurring guitar figure that gives a poignant, distant quality to the grandiose sentiments expressed in the main body of the song; on December's closer “Clandestine High Holy” it works the other way around. It's more obviously menacing than what precedes it, with an ominous bassline and impenetrably accusatory lyrics. As the intro repeats halfway through, these give way to an increasingly fervent ascending guitar line that ends up concluding the entire album on the most ridiculously cathartic D-major chord this side of “Marquee Moon.” It's startling, and it sounds like a rush of four-in-the-morning manic energy suddenly yanking the protagonist out of his miserable, winter-induced stupor into a state of irrational, gleeful, and probably completely doomed exuberance instead. It's a fitting distillation of the album's overall mood into one final, frenetic burst.

Following December the two non-Runnings members of the band left and recognition continued to evade the newer incarnations. It would be nice to think this might change now that their best album is more readily available (complete with a lovingly crafted gatefold sleeve and two Echelons-era promo videos and everything) but regardless, it stands as one of the most bizarrely life-affirming pieces of abject moping ever recorded.