This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
To call the return of Mission Of Burma the comeback of the year — or even the decade — might be the very definition of understatement.
It has been a staggering 22 years since this influential post-punk outfit from Boston retired due to singer-guitarist Roger Miller’s chronic tinnitus. But ONoffON, their long-overdue sophomore studio album, finds them miraculously and magnificently picking up right where they left off with 1982’s Vs. The wall-of-noise guitar riffs, the urgently charging rhythm section, the anthemic choruses and powerfully melodic vocals; on these 16 cuts they’re all as unchanged as the portrait of Dorian Gray. And choppy, ferocious tracks like The Setup and The Enthusiast rank right up there with MoB classics like That’s When I Reach for My Revolver and Academy Fight Song.
Yet at no time does ONoffON feel nostalgic, thanks to the most advanced weapon in their arsenal — the envelope-pushing tape manipulations and electronic knobtwiddling that was so ahead of its time in 1980, and still sounds cutting-edge. Bottom line: They were a great band then. They’re just as great now. And this time, maybe we won’t have to wait a generation for a sequel.
