The early 2000s may very well end up being remembered as a particularly fertile musical period. After the grunge dust of the ‘90s had finally settled and then been replaced by post-rock and electronica, rock & roll was once again allowed to flourish during the decade, with The Strokes, The White Stripes, et al. ushering in a new era of so-called garage rock. Of course, there had never ceased to be bands making dirty rock records, but with the sound suddenly en vogue, there was no shortage of great records favoring those greasy guitar sounds.

One band from the era who seems criminally overlooked is The Starvations, a ragtag Los Angeles quintet that released three full-lengths between 1995 and 2005 before moving on to other things. (Singer Gabriel Hart penned a novel in addition to forming the Jail Weddings.) The band’s second album, Get Well Soon, which was originally released in 2003 and was just issued digitally for the first time by Permanent Teeth Records, was a high watermark not only for the band, but for the era and an album that still sounds incredibly vital.

While the record channels some of the same garage undertones—and no doubt a few of the same influences—as those of the band’s contemporaries, it favors a careening cadence, always an inch away from going off the rails, over more stylized attacks. Indeed, this is a record soaked with blood and sweat, not major label money. It very much embodies the LA environs in which it was made, being equal parts Bukowski folklore, Hollywood noir, and Gun Club punk-blues. Indeed, it’s particularly hard not to hear Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s ghost haunting the slide-tinged stomp of album opener “This Is What You Wanted” or the explosive death rattle of “Oh Deputy.”

Throughout the record, Hart’s songwriting has more backwoods grit than any city-slicker should possess, so much so that when he sings of heaven and hell, you can’t help but believe he’s caught glimpses of both. Meanwhile his cohorts—bassist Jean-Paul Garnier, guitarist Ryan Hertz, accordionist/pianist Vanessa Gonzalez, and drummer Ian Harrower—swing expertly behind his yowled aphorisms, matching his salty tales of woes with both reckless abandon and precision where needed. Get Well Soon still sounds as wild and woolly as the day it was born and is something that can’t be forgotten once heard.