Starflyer 59 has been one of my favorite bands for 30+ years now, ever since I heard those sludgy guitar riffs on 1994’s Silver. To date, they’ve released nearly 20 albums filled with Jason Martin’s impeccable melodies and arrangements. But it’s Starflyer 59’s sophomore album that I’ve returned to most often. Ironically, it’s the album that almost ended Starflyer 59.

Silver was produced by the production collective Blood, aka Mortal’s Jyro Xhan and Jerome Fontamillas along with Mark Rodriguez, whose credits included DigHayZoose, Focused, and Plankeye. But for Gold, Martin took on the production duties himself, and set out to make an album that toned down Silver’s shoegaze in exchange for a ’70s-influenced rock sound replete with arena-sized guitar solos.

As the album’s recording dragged on, though, Martin lost himself in the studio and experienced a sort of breakdown. Not surprisingly, he hated Gold when it was done, considering it indulgent and over-produced, while fans expecting more Loveless-style soundscapes expressed their disappointment. But I loved Gold nearly from the beginning.

At the time, I was a painfully awkward romantic train-wreck who could never work up the courage to ask out any girl I was crushing on. Thus, ultra-mopey songs like “When You Feel Miserable,” “Messed Up Over You,” and “Indiana” were in constant rotation. (Indeed, if you were a girl who ever received a mix tape from me in the mid-to-late ’90s, then you probably heard “Indiana.”) The same goes for the album’s B-sides, with “Next Time Around” and “Le Vainqueur” ranking among the band’s darkest and heaviest tunes.

Martin’s reservations aside, Gold has since become one of Starflyer 59’s most beloved and acclaimed albums, even earning a spot on Pitchfork’s list of the 50 best shoegaze albums of all time. Every time I hear Martin rip the heart out of his guitar on “Messed Up Over You” or sing “All the hurting here will die” on “Indiana,” I’m instantly transported to the summer of 1995, when Gold became an indelible part of my life’s mopey soundtrack.