Forgotten Foundation is a reissue of Smog's clangorous second album. For newer listeners, it should be stressed that young Bill Callahan was very different from the mellow miniaturist of and . This is Smog at his lo-fiest and no-waviest, his most misogynistic and malicious. If you dislike the bookends of , the distortion-drenched echo chamber "Astronaut" and the toneless no-fi dirge "Hole in the Heart", you should steer clear of . But if you find those songs strangely magnetic for their sheer contrariness, and wonder how the competent, tranquil Smog of today earned his reputation for musical and lyrical malice, you'd do well to begin here.