Two labels with a perchant for noisy guitars, both operated through the early nineties mainly. I will take in consideration the quality of their output only (you can take in consideration other things)

Crust
Cherubs
Drain
Starfish
Distorted pony
Johnboy
Bedhead
Ed Hall
Paul Newman
...trail of dead
sixteen deluxe
Windsor for the derby
Pain teens.

VS

Cows
Tar
Vertigo
Chokebore
Janitor Joe
Halo of Flies
Hammerhead
God Bullies
Guzzard
Today is the day
Unsane
+ some singles from Jesus Lizard, Melvins, Helmet...

Tough one... Tar's Jackson is like the best record ever or kinda, but EVERYTHING I've heard from Coffey's label is top notch.

There's plenty of essential stuff but also a lot of filler in the Amrep Roster, and Mac recordings were kinda crappy until 1993 or so, when he started to not suck.

Trance takes it by a thin air.

AmRep for the overall quality, I guess.

And there's stuff on YS I'm not familiar with (Drain, Starfish, Paul Newman).

Johnboy, though? Jesus...

AmRep, easy.

The Urinals
Steel Pole Bath Tub
Chrome Cranks
Feedtime
Surgery

&c.

Pembs wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:30 pm And there's stuff on YS I'm not familiar with (Drain, Starfish, Paul Newman).

Paul Newman is fantastic. Highly recommended. "Curse You Would" and "The New Goth" from Only Love Can Break Your Heart are just only two of the dizzying, spiky, noisy, runaway balls of melodic rock music contained therein. Quite impressive. Surprised they were never as well-known as their peers.

Another TS band I will forever admire is Sixteen Deluxe. Wonderful, swirling noisepop/shoegaze. Backfeed Magnetbabe still gets airtime in my house. And I wouldn't sleep on Carrie Clark and Kevin Whitley's pop sidepiece Pretty Please.

All that said: vote Amphetamine Reptile and vote often.

I remember a lot of love for Bedhead in the old forum, though I could be mistaken.

That AmRep VHS with the strange man between the tracks got watched over and over and over again at our place.

AmRep Industries. :WF: 4 for Bedhead and Johnboy.

Pembs wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:30 pm And there's stuff on YS I'm not familiar with (Drain, Starfish, Paul Newman).

I love that first Starfish record and about half of the second one. More pop/hooks than the rest of Trance's stuff though.

enframed wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:25 pm AmRep, easy.

The Urinals
Steel Pole Bath Tub
Chrome Cranks
Feedtime
Surgery

&c.

Steel Pole Bath Tub was Boner/Tupelo Records, no?

tommy wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 11:08 am

Pembs wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:30 pm And there's stuff on YS I'm not familiar with (Drain, Starfish, Paul Newman).

I love that first Starfish record and about half of the second one. More pop/hooks than the rest of Trance's stuff though.

enframed wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:25 pm AmRep, easy.

The Urinals
Steel Pole Bath Tub
Chrome Cranks
Feedtime
Surgery

&c.

Steel Pole Bath Tub was Boner/Tupelo Records, no?

Yep.

Though they may have released a single on Amrep or appear on an Amrep comp like Jesus Lizard did.

If I recall correctly

tommy wrote: Tue Dec 28, 2021 11:08 am

Pembs wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:30 pm And there's stuff on YS I'm not familiar with (Drain, Starfish, Paul Newman).

I love that first Starfish record and about half of the second one. More pop/hooks than the rest of Trance's stuff though.

enframed wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:25 pm AmRep, easy.

The Urinals
Steel Pole Bath Tub
Chrome Cranks
Feedtime
Surgery

&c.

Steel Pole Bath Tub was Boner/Tupelo Records, no?

Mostly yes, they were on many labels. LPs mostly Boner. But IIRC they put out something in AmRep...

Even removing them I'd go with AmRep.

Amrep for me. Mainly because I was in the AmRep orbit growing up in Western Wisconsin. Cows, Hammerhead, Guzzard, etc. were active when I was growing up/going to shows in Minneapolis.