Recorded over a month long period in their living room (bet the neighbors were thrilled), 1979's self-produced "Rayne" is pretty impressive.  Essentially recorded live without any overdubs or postproduction enhancement, this sounds better than 80% of major label releases.  It's also interesting in that if you didn't know it had been recorded in the late 1970s, you probably would have guessed that it was a late-1960s product.  
 
Featuring all original material, the eight tracks offered up a mixture of conventional hard rock ('No Reason To Cry' and the slide guitar propelled 'Slip Away') and more folk-oriented track (the ballad 'Never Going, Always Gone' and the Dylan-esque 'Good Dog').  Lyrically this isn't exactly upbeat sunshine pop ('No One Heard Her'), but who cares when it's played with so much enthusiasm.  Know all those albums that say 'play loud'?  Well this one doesn't carry that statement, but it does sound great when cranked up to the max. Easily one of the most impressive albums I've heard this year.