Our occasional series, “Secret History,” features profiles of classic D.C. albums as a way of looking back at the District’s contributions to music over time. This installment finds DCist reminiscing over Unrest’s final LP, Perfect Teeth (Teenbeat/4AD, 1993).

In a lot of ways, Unrest were the epitome of the best aspects of D.C.’s indie rock culture of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Smart, excitable kids with good ideas and boundless enthusiasm, ambitious without any concrete reasons to be, these Arlingtonians remained undaunted in their efforts to make music – exciting, interesting, catchy-as-hell music – and give people outside of their immediate social circle a chance to hear it.

Unrest’s catalog (several LPs and numerous singles, EPs, and compilation tracks) represents a sprawling stylistic map of beloved inspirations and far-ranging experimentalism, veering from raucous hardcore to homespun acoustic folk to noisy art rock to heavy metal homage to poised, flawlessly crafted pop masterpieces in the UK mold. And by founding Teenbeat Records, Mark Robinson – Wakefield High graduate and Unrest’s singer, guitarist, and lead audio architect, as well as the mastermind behind Grenadine, Air Miami, and Flin Flon – ushered in one of American indie rock’s most revered labels while simultaneously providing D.C. with an outlet for the more overtly poppy sounds of the local scene.

1993’s Perfect Teeth LP, Unrest’s last, is perhaps the greatest distillation of the group’s vision and abilities. Its 11 tracks find the band, which was Robinson, bassist/vocalist Bridget Cross, and drummer Phil Krauth, operating at the top of its game, perfecting the pristine (but never sterile), endlessly listenable approach introduced on 1992’s must-have Imperial f.f.r.r. full-length, and closing out Unrest’s impressive decade-plus run in fine style. A mix of indie pop burners and subdued, thoughtful sonic meditations, Perfect Teeth is bulletproof.

“We definitely loved New Order and Joy Division,” Robinson said while speaking with DCist recently about Unrest’s many influences. “Especially New Order, of course, [who] were very pop. But you can just go back and look at the older Unrest stuff, and while it doesn’t seem as poppy as the later stuff, it’s just because there were less pop songs, but the pop songs were definitely there. It’s just that we were into so many different things that we kind of tried to play all these different styles as well;. I don’t think anything was ever conscious about that, we just kind of tried to do the music that we wanted to do, or do the sonic experiments that we wanted to do.”