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CD REVIEWS July, 2007.
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| Updated - July 30 | ||
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Nekromantix
NEW!
-Stu Gibson
The Vicious
NEW!
-Stu Gibson
Regulations
NEW!
-Stu Gibson
The 13th Victim
NEW!
- Smutstrutter
Wild Billy
Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire
NEW! “The New York Times called me the king of garage rock, But that’s before The Stripes came and half-inched the bleeding lot, Named after a chicken…” – Bugger The Buffs
Just as the garage grime-ometer isn’t in any danger of becoming gentrified, the off-kilter humour hasn’t been lost along the way either. Twinned with the comedic Comb Over Mod, Snack Crack is a relentless, strychnine-spiked portrayal of sobering street-level realities that infringes far and wide from Big Brother to third world labour. The whimsical We 4 Beatles of Liverpool are hoiks the old playground chant from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, while the warped, Spector, girl-band swoon set to restless suburban strife on Date With Doug. Outstanding moment Bugger The Buffs (and you have to applaud a guy that deadpans ‘I was invited to appear on Celebrity Big Brother / But only ‘cos I’d been some two-bit artists lover’ and must take great glee in being able to recount ‘Kylie Minogue even quoted my poetry / Til she found out I’d been derogatory’) decries all the people who lavish Childish’s exuberantly brash cross-wired, punk-waxed, early sixties R’n’B six o’ the best with praise while wheeling in the readies leaving ol’ Billy with stick and no kebab. Related with a smirk, however begrudging, means the indelible impression is one of sardonic delight. The sounds may be famously vintage, but there’s nothing remotely antiquated in the straight-talking, liberal tongue-lashings which make it (mostly) utterly relevant. Given his status as affirmed outsider, the irony of Childish’s scathing contempt for contemporary culture as viewed from afar being a necessary reflection of the here and now should be celebrated all the more. -Stu Gibson
Pissed Jeans
NEW! It’s quite well established that pissed jeans aren’t socially acceptable (aside from being a tad irritating to wear), so Pissed Jeans the hardcore, uranium-depleting, gut-fucking quartet follow suit. With frustrations fuelled by the mindless depravity stemming from day-job drudgery, unable to gain satisfaction drilling idle psychotic fantasies on the boss and no way is playing knee-knocking songs at open-mic nights about the receptionist an option, so what to do? Yup, spew. Spit innards-squelching monotone meditations of rage and rancid confusion over seemingly in-cohesive quicksand-in-a-cement-mixer guitar churnings (entirely able to cause such involuntary and inappropriate eruptions in the susceptible that the band named themselves for) with drum ambushes that slowly suffocate the sound somewhere between pandemonium and peace. Persistent pounding drums propel People Person on its haphazard course of exquisite sadism where acid rain guitar showers and burst gas mains reverberate, adding a napalm-blast sense of utter chaos, perhaps something akin to cowering in a fox-hole during a fire-fight engulfed by shadows and hallucinations. Amongst the obtuse blast-furnace Sabbath zombie-stumbles of Fantasy World and the MC5 / Stooges avant-mantra of Scrapbooking there’s a couple that freefall into the confines of convention. A Bad Wind (just to prove they came upon this discomforting mind-pulping assault course rather more by design than accident) and I’ve Still Got You (Ice Cream) both get a foot or two out of the sucking lung-wound of sludge they revel in like infant school kids playing with glue in a sand-pit. A superbly named band then in this case. They’re not scary, or even aggressive, but the incessant tank-track trundle turns your brain to curd, festering like a suppurating sore to become the aural equivalent of being disposed of alive in a rubbish disposal machine? Not so much industrial in its pounding, gruesome throb then, though definite charges of industrial sabotage and demolition could be laid in its path. Incomprehension was never so intensely focussed. -Stu Gibson __________________________________
Sex Pistols
This is the first official CD release of the Pistols’ infamous bootleg from 1977. This unauthorized album actually hit the streets a month or so prior to Never Mind The Bollocks and was comprised of demos from the band’s original lineup of Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glenn Matlock and Johnny Rotten—hence, before Sid was involved. Matlock would leave the band prior to the recording of Bollocks, so Spunk was pulled together to fill the void. And it’s a fascinating experience featuring spare, undeveloped versions of Pistols standards—sans the wall of guitar overdubs—and different titles like “Lots Of Fun” (“Pretty Vacant”) and “Nookie” (“Anarchy In The UK”). There are also three bonus tracks of early demos from 1976. In all, the stuff has a slight vintage-glam feel that was all but lost on the official album. But the snot quotient is still quite high throughout. I guess the fact that I’m going on about this little gem is proof enough that the Sex Pistols are worth quite a bit more than an instant euphoric buzz—they’re worth analyzing, too. - Jim Kaz
The
Aggrolites
-Stu Gibson
Skimmer
- Stu Gibson
Kill
Toby Wyatt This looked promisingly full of bad vibes, but it's basically overemotive rock for the myspace generation. I know the term "emo" is overused and abused, but that's pretty much what you get here. Done well enough I suppose, and "Stationed" has a great punch to it. Otherwise this didn't do much for me, and it's pretty damn WHINY for a bunch of guys who wear Red Man chewing tobacco gimme caps. (www.eugenrecords.com and yes, they have a myspace page).
-Sascha
-Sascha
Pleasingly eschewing the ultra-distorted guitars that many rely on to achieve their raw power, Gallows take that in stride and are still ravenous with rage like a re-wired Bret Easton Ellis anti-hero purposefully losing his medication. Engulfed in a gut-gurgling wrecking ball of riffs and synapse-scraping vocals the songs themselves often splutter with an almost in-articulated, if not in-articulable, passion, while not forgetting that the rudimentary reason here is to fucking ROCK - whether that means the slightly more metal In The Belly Of A Shark or the gloriously gonzoid boulder-breaking quarry-chasming berserker-a-billy (yes, really!) of Six Years. Their sarcastic ire and avalanche of sociopathic anger really is visceral and vital, like cleaning your ears with knitting needles, as it sucks you into a withering vortex of rancid relationships viewed from the eye of a malevolent voyeur. The brilliant fuck it all and fuck it sign off on Abandon Ship of ‘Well, I never loved you anyway’ as disaster looms; the caustic, sardonic Just Because You Sleep Next To Me Doesn’t Mean You Are Safe and Will Someone Shoot That Fucking Snake (‘You ain’t a rock star yet…you’ve always been a FUCKING PRICK’) and the title-tracks casual sadism of a night-club lothario all add to a unique salvo of sordid disdain that could haul any other set of hardcore weaklings over the coals with its dick. - Stu Gibson |
Decadence Within
NEW!
- Stu Gibson
The Nerds (Rock Inferno)
NEW!
Italian rock impalers, known as The Nerds have delivered a sermon of fire and brimstone with their third album of much destructo, “Murder Is Now.” Now that gates have been opened to Hell with the first song, “A Dinner With Jeffrey”, followers can wait patiently in the smoking lounge provided up front during the admission to their damnation to hell. Chorus Of One picked up where Scarey Records left off, and released this honky, donkey-punching, scar rock out on parole. It’s lurking down some dark alley now in a record store with a baseball bat to greet you with. It’s the sorta rock inferno sermon Jeff Clayton uses for prayer before each meal. With liner notes written by the Mastermind of Foreign Objects himself, Clayton has worked with this band on multiple levels in the past. Other bands on their one hundred page rap sheet, include El Guapo Stuntteam, The Spades, the Bulemics, and Frankenstein Dragqueen. I ran into Monkey Motherfucker Marco a little around a month ago on tour with Bible OF The Devil. Together, the Rock N Roll Outlaw trampled us in the audience. The bruises and missing toenails will forever be remembered, and so however, will this album be implanted in my forehead with, like barwire. “There will not be another album out anytime soon after this,” Marco has quoted. Indeed they came a long way since 1997 and their first tour in Holland and Belgium. If you happened to miss their U.S. tour in ’05, then you, quite possibly, are bigger nerds than any of these badass animals. Drop your hat and suck in your fat. An album like this, will floor any psycho fuck! Chris Benoit couldn’t even have snapped in an untimely fashion as this. Another Blitzkrieg ignited by outrage in world of high bred, scum fucks!
-Smutstrutter
Scott Reynolds
NEW!
-Stu Gibson
Bad Religion
NEW!
-Stu Gibson The
Velvet Underground: Under Review (An Independent Critical Analysis) DVD
NEW! One of the special features of this dvd is “The Hardest Velvets’ Interactive Quiz In The World Ever.” I scored a poor 8 out of 25, and this was after watching the entire thing. I re-took the quiz, entering the first of the four multiple choice responses for every question, and scored 7. (Admittedly, most of the questions on this quiz were not answered in the film, so I don’t feel quite so bad. I’m sure you know more about the VU than I do, but trust me, this quiz was tough.) As rock-docs go, this one was pretty decent. A bunch of rare performances and obscure footage, some cool interviews, comments and criticism from a bunch of VU experts, and, of course, the music, combine to make a rather compelling story. Mostly chronological, the doc follows the band’s story from conception to Exploding Plastic Inevitable to The Velvet Underground and Nico toWhite Light/White Heat to John Cale’s departure to eponymous to Loaded to the band’s destruction upon Lou Reed’s departure, leaving out most of the gossip and drama of the interpersonal relationships and focussing instead on the records and the songs. Which is how it should be, if you ask me. Some highlights: -Maureen Tucker’s interview segments take place in what I assume to be her kitchen, complete with dishes in the sink and a piece of toast left popped up in the toaster. She is old and grandmotherly and charming and still cool as hell, and she wears a green v-neck sweater. -Joe Harvard’s musical deconstructions of the classic songs. He sits on a stool and plays his guitar; a fishtank and a bunch of silver balloons are visible in the background. Which is how it should be, if you ask me. - Robert Christgau’s insight into Moe’s simple yet effective style of playing drums: her drumming is “where the punk notion of how the beat works begins.” I really liked that. -Norman Dolph’s insight into “Heroin”: the song sounds like a drug trip. What?? (I think Norm thinks we are all idiots. I did only score 8 out of 25, but still...) -Billy Name’s face. It’s like a rubber Halloween mask. I kept waiting for him to pull it off. He never did. If you are a VU novice, you’ll learn something from this analysis; if you are familiar with the band, own some of their records, but never really thought much about them, you’ll gain a deeper appreciation for their innovation and influence; and if you’re an expert, you’ll probably score higher than I did on the quiz. Anyway you slice it, this dvd is a pretty good time. Strangely, I feel like making toast. - Holly
Middle Finger
Salute
NEW!
-Stu Gibson
TV Smith and The Bored Teenagers
NEW!
-Stu Gibson _____________________________________ Social Distortion
- Stu Gibson The Young Gods Swiss sample-core deviants delve further into the ditches on their flight path through European social and personal strife and uncharted civil unrest. If you wanna still cram them into the industrial pigeonhole then so be it, but if so it’s industrial action with a strike-force that could bring whole systems, solar as well as political, to a standstill. Importantly not evolution though. The Young Gods themselves won’t ever be caught sitting around. Unsettling static cuts through jagged guitars spiralling in and out of worm holes while electro belches serrate the disquieting drums. All set with the tension level of the race in ‘Marathon Man’ even the most ambient here, such as ‘Stay With Us’, palpate like you’ve taken point in Phnom Penh or, as on closer ‘Un Point C’est Tout’, are hiding out in a fox-hole with flares and flash-bangs decorating the sky and splitting your mind like a Jackson Pollock plastered with the remains of a platoon taking a direct hit. While oil-rig drilling ‘I’m The Drug’ clatters like dance-floor fave of yore ‘Skinflowers’ at times they become almost a chin-stroking armchair ambientists indulgence, like watching a scientist peer into a microscope, sighing in wonderment without showing you. While you respect their intelligence you’re not too sure what the point is they’re getting at. In the end you may stop caring even though at the same time acknowledging that it’s a shame. Interesting and challenging as opposed to essential and exciting. -Stu Gibson The Downbeat 5
- Stu Gibson An admirably untampered with live recording (made not far from where I grew up),
the third CD by these Bostonians. For those who care, JJ Rassler who played with
both the legendary DMZ and The Queers—two valuable sonic reference points for
those who haven't heard them yet-- spearheads this band, although raspmaster Jen
D'Angora always lets you know who's really in charge. Spot on Velvet Underground
and Kinks covers help this disc chug along. It's fun, grubby, utterly charming.
I'm really kicking myself now for the amount of times I've missed them live. Krum Bums
- Stu Gibson Lower Class Brats
The DT’S The fact that the head of the Estrus label is the guitar-toting toreador on this here record may give you a pointer in the eye about what will be wending its wicked way ear-ward. ‘Tis a writhing mix of seventies hard-rock and soul, with the swagger of MC5’s ‘High Times’ and strut of old chicken-legs Turner flagging ‘em down round some town’s city limits. Sounding dry as wrinkly old Bardot yet steamy like Stax where one spark’s gonna ignite a whole arson display that would be every pyromaniacs wank-extravaganza deluxe there are some belters begging on their knees to have it socked to ‘em. It may sound as though Dave Crider hadn’t slept since he heard the Bellrays (many a song could pass for Kekaula and co. should they have eased off the bass a bit down to Diana Young-Blanchards’ gusts of gutsy, raw-wracked, well-stacked vocals) in a mad search of emulation (among other -tions that start with the letter ‘e’) and at times any filth and dirt seem to only be participated in before 9pm there’s a class and sass that only comes from being stuck out in all sortsa weather without being beaten. - Stu Gibson |
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More B-movie
splatter-billy of gore-gouging guitars and disembodied vocals that use tail-fins
as tooth-picks from Nekroman and this years band of Bigsby-abusing bloodhounds.
Thirteen (natch – c’mon, go with it) souls secreted from misty graveyards and
fermented in the coffin-bass until they decompose into a necrotising cloud of
persistently perky petrol-headed rockin’ meditations on life, love, lycanthropy,
lace and liquor. Perhaps not as frenzied as some previous records this still
does the zombie-fried strut n’ stumblin’ lurch with the absurd rot-recipe of
‘Voodoo Shop Hop’ and the ‘hey, my girlfriends the hot Horrorpops chick’ of
‘Horny In A Hearse’ and ‘My Girl’ so well don’t panic if your head splits,
consumed with a shrieking cackle - you may well find yourself doing a dangling
underneath the train bridge dance from The Lost Boys. The horror ballad
is a particularly succulent speciality of the band and this year’s models
‘Anaheim After Dark’ and ‘Out Come The Batz’ aren’t much in the way of
exceptions but may possibly be toppled from Notre Dame tower Lon Chaney style,
by the country jig of ‘Fantazma’. Utterly, stutteringly preposterous, maybe, but
that’s kinda the serrated fang-tooth point, (blood) sucker! 
Swedish
punk-spurting upstarts, featuring an ex-International Noise Conspirator, The
Vicious will be sick on your cynicism at having both a name and album title so
closely tied in, if not trussed up in bondage pants, with what could nowadays
pass as clichéd punk iconography. So much so that you won’t give a lit match in
your mohican if their next album were to be called ‘Crossing The Baltic Sea
With…’ As it is in our post-anal wasteland of apathy and crop of cringe-worthy
garage-blues bores and pop-ponce-punk primadonnas, hearing a record from the
ever-fertile fields of Scandinavia that casts its acidic, acerbic eye around
society in the manner of The Adverts and TV Smith, with the
rampant toothache churning-gut syndrome of early Damned, a little
phlegm-fleck of The Dead Boys (on I Don’t Believe In Christ we
have a sonic reduction for the carbon-footprint age) and even Radio Birdman
and X (Obsessive) is a far fresher blast of spring-cleaning
aeration than you might first imagine. With that in mind and titles like
Suspicions, Sanity and The Pigs you may be able to track it’s
evolution from the faintest footprint but never mind this is far more alive and
pertinent than the worthless dross of uniformed preening Pollys passed off as
punk today. This is a worthwhile trek back underground without enduring brute
boot-happy Oi! crud. The CD version also features six extra tracks from earlier
singles for Clash-style vfm. 
Despite moving
onto a label, Swedish basement rats Regulations are still a gloriously
DIY-sounding punk prospect. This CD features the seven-song ‘Electric Guitar’ EP
along with the earlier self-titled and ‘Destroy’ releases, and show a clear
progression. With a mucus-laden snarl like Jimmy Pursey this is stripped
to the bare bones hardcore as it always was and always will be under the weight
of the watered down nappy-rash brigade. The metallic, clanking, emphatically
emphysemic clunky sound bleeds all over - if there were any VU meters present
during recording they were either gaffa-taped over or booted out. Far more
primitive and roughshod than label-mates The Vicious (bassist Robert
Petterson plays in both bands) they’re also an effective force of, and for,
disaffected urban ditch-dwellers, stomping rumbling Ramones riffs into
the pavement with a Black Flag pole of pile-driving power on squat-punk
tenement anthems like No Rights, Acceptance and We’re Blank.
The voice of resistance and righteous ire is, as with too much else, ringing out
from Scandinavian darklands. 
Any assault rock influencing you to cut yourself to bleed
your anger out is all right in my book. At least, their thug attitudes are not
acting out in crack hood, back alleys. These Anarchy cooks boil up 13 vigorous,
death punk tracks on the art of making war with yourself using various
substances and vomit. “Live Fast Die Drunk” doesn’t cut any slack with poisonous
lyrics about driving drunk. Louie Pist, El Wood, Jonny Psycho, and AJ all look
like scrawny fuckers crawling up out of the 
Aptly laying
previous combo the Buff Medways to roost round the back of the garden shed, and
with two new recruits propping up the chicken shack colossus, Childish casts a
livid glare at the bog-brush end of Blair’s Britain on this slab of feral
rumination. Bristling with valiant ire and belligerent brilliance, this latest
instalment of Billy’s blues is as off-the-cuff a plate of over-salted stew as
ever, yet littered with enough striking observations and indignant invective
that cut to the quick –sharp! The ever-active and accurate perception casts
aspersions at everything ‘Cool Britannia’ from CCTV and the ipod to
Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch over the cracked-tooth, crinkle-cut Kinks riff of
Joe Strummer’s Grave with the fervent urgency of a town crier. 
It seems a little
funny that some 30 years later we’re analyzing the Sex Pistols like “serious”
critics might ponder the existential properties of Joni Mitchell’s work, or the
lyrical whims of Tom Waits. And while the Pistols have long been critics’
darlings, beyond that, they had an inherent sense of skepticism that flew in the
face of both the musical elite and the commercial sheep. So, in a sense, the
joke was on all of us.
While at
face value anyone’s appreciation of The Aggrolites is gonna depend strictly on
their tolerance for pure reggae the deciding scratch-factor here is even the
most ardent non-reggae listener’s capacity for unadulterated fun. Unadulterated
but adorned with impossibly sun-scorched and smog-hazed scoops of ship-sinking
sodas, ‘Reggae Hit L.A.’ follows on from last year’s Hellcat debut with its
spicy jerk sandwiching of skank-tastic euphoria and Stax’s sweet home
celebratory feel. Such an agile authenticity billows around these generous gusts
of good-time, road-ready, roots un-earthing slip-slides to salvation that just
doesn’t come from even the deepest immersion in any scene, though. Nope, denying
the doubters and parting the waves of pastiche here is the old originator - the
prime mover - that runs right back into the original source of all music – that
which herebe called soul, brother. Embodied here in the colossal James
Brown / Solomon Burke voice of frontman Jesse Wagner, even the most
myopic music ‘fan’ would find it hard not to become embroiled in the sweaty
succour of The ‘Lites rapture, whether it’s the storm-the-party stomping hymm of
Work It (complete with cheesy-grinning calypsodic keys), the glorious ode
to your hearts desire on Faster Bullet, the lovingly regretful Let’s
Pack Our Bags, or the pedalo-pushing instrumental Rhythm and Light.
Both beatifically bleary-eyed and arrestingly alive there’s a whole lotta, whole
lotta glory to be found in the now metaphorical grooves. Forget the image of
spliff-factory dirges and get glory bound. 
What a
gift of a title! I’ll tell YOU what! That this godawful strop is no better than
self-made CD’s from actual teen-punkers as opposed to blokes a fair bit older
than that says more than enough. Shiny happy pop-video play-ground, paper-round,
paper-thin punkery that grates like tracing-paper bog roll on piles that you
used to get in school and all the best pubs. Neutered surf-riddled Ramones
guitars, nasal chipmunk vocals with affected, anodyne So-Cal accents with a few
off-key warbles left in for added punk-grit and horribly inconsequential aren’t
we cute lyrics that McFly would cringe at. Repackaged rebellion for
stockbrokers daughters. Maybe they’re onto something after all. N’ah, put it
down. 
This reissue of last years
debut from underground bonkers boys from Watford (ie, nowhere, UK) shows that
the quick re-release with special edition can at least be done properly.
Re-armed with a set of Radio sessions Gallows suburban nightmares and urban
misanthropy are just given extra potency. 
This massive 49
track collection descends back on a sprawling trip through the subterranean
trenches of the hardcore scene for a ten year stretch starting in the murky
mid-80s depths. As heavily politicised and burning with socially aware rage as
might be expected the songs are dense essays, discourses full of deadly intent
and intense seriousness glaring at the bigger picture lends them extra relevance
for today rather than leaving them as quaint snapshots. The sludgy recordings of
these unreleased live, demo and rehearsal tapes enhances that sense of listening
to the authentic disaffected howls from the underground’s bunkers, often
magnificently so, ensuring it should be of interest for current hardcorers as
much as collectors. 
Scanning a
press-release only to have your brain once again valiantly fighting off the
reflex to stop sending messages to your knees, and so sending you arse over tit
down the stairs upon seeing the shudder-some ‘pop-punk’ term tends to shore up a
humongous un-breachable sea-wall type of defence in your opinionated scribbler.
‘Tis rather wonderful then that Reynolds, veteran of All, Goodbye
Harry and The Pavers, possesses the chops and chipped spirit
to sprinkle some of the dirty depth and grit chopped up with riotous tension and
malicious mischief of the ‘Pleased To Meet Me’ era Replacements as well
as Westerberg’s sparklier and spikier solo moments. Reynolds may still
sketch everyday scenarios but his acerbic, observant eye and caustic scratch
give these 22 tracks a real kick, thus generally taking a sharp left-turn away
from the more generically banal bullshit of much that lies passively simpering
on the pop-punk platter. 
What with the
shit-storm that the Bush-Blair boys are throwing around like kids having a
snowball fight it’s somehow, in an incredibly quaint and un-hardcore
happenstance, appropriate and almost reassuring that Bad Religion, stalwarts and
shop-stewards of the strain of Phd punk they germinated, really are back on the
road to their ‘No Control’ and ‘Suffer’ peak. Their irate conviction has always
jettisoned itself out of their best stuff like an ejector-seat with a feel,
humanity and emotional connection - warmth even - that others lose, or simply
don’t even have, in trying to be (too) clever. This is no different and, while
it may not quite register with those early mid-eighties records, Greg Graffin’s
sensible, concise and intelligent treatises that verge on philosophical poetry
when set against such all-pervading passivity are pretty much essential
polemics, alongside, say, Mark Lind and Steve Earle. Perhaps tellingly (if not
surprisingly) Lost Pilgrim bears a certain Earle-ification, and though
this guided tour through the geographical re-imagining of the globe is set to
their viciously effective fast-forward blur, there are slower moments, the
occasional stomping rhythm and even swooping folksy choruses. But they succeed
now, with their own war to rail against, where in their mid-nineties slump they
seemed forced and desperate. With the political climate far cooler than when
Clinton cruised the globe, closer to the early Raegan era that spurred their
wrath twenty-five years ago. Coincidence? 
This set of
young ‘uns - middle-teenagers I believe – have already stomped around the punk
circuit with able stable-hands like Deadline, GoldBlade, Drongos For Europe and
played at the Wasted festival. If you get a hold of this then you can figure for
yourself that, as with Outlaw, that isn’t through any patronising from the
powers above. You can be a churlish cunt and carp that they play run of
the mill street punk that doesn’t exactly extricate them from that particular
straitjacket that bulges like a size 4 on Buster Bloodvessel, but lend ‘em an
ear or two if you still have both and thank fuck Green Day haven’t taken control
of every up coming punk kid you see out there. 
Following the
recent trend (who’d have thought it, eh? But it’s not the worst idea to pick-up
on) to play the entirety of a classic album TV Smith hereby performs The Adverts
awesome debut of street-corner diatribes and eloquent epistles about
butt-deadening boredom with sharp, paper-cut poetry for its 30th
anniversary. It does generate the eternal live album debate that it’s a nice
little snapshot of that gig you attended but, in reality, why not just buy the
quintessential classic recording itself? When was choice a bad thing? Smith has
as much, maybe more, of the effervescent anger and isolated intellectual ire
that he fused with punk’s initial barrier-breaking, ‘no rules’ theory to concoct
his idiosyncratic creations than he ever had. So why not? it goes down well and
Spanish compadres Suzy and Los Quattro (ie The Bored Teenagers) give
One Chord Wonders, Great British Mistake and New Church a visceral
blistering boot and razor-wire raw dynamics that makes this live from the mixing
desk, no-overdubs, proper, actual live recording an ideal companion
piece, not cut-price cash-in, to ‘The Ultimate Edition’ version that came out a
couple of years back. And, don’t worry, as Smith announces early on to the
audience, you get Gary Gilmore’s Eyes among other non-album tracks. 
I wouldn’t normally credit the mighty SD with releasing a
record that makes me wonder if I’ve been coshed by an insane dwarf and dragged
through to some other dimension. ‘Greatest Hits’ eh? Who dreamt this up? Sure,
the music is nothing short of awesome, and contains essentials Mommy’s Little
Monster, Story Of My Life, When The Angels Sing but c’mon,
twelve songs (ooooh, one new one, goodie) from a band that could easily fill the
entire length of two CD’s with choice country-punkin’ fare. Although it is
traditional for any fan to grumble over the omission of a favourite this is
kinda tawdry tat that could’ve been done far better. Contract filler? If so,
kill the messenger. 
Bostonian R’n’B bar-boogie-sters The Downbeats bring the
venue to the studio for this live recording, and cutting the costs of getting a
gig down on disc pays off. Shorn as should be of the studio overdubs that litter
live albums like fag ends and plastic pints at the end of a show this simmers
with the spirited atmosphere of good times, that shall shimmy their way into
your central nervous system as you spin your wheels or stomp your soles through
these weekend summer sunsets. Even if not all the songs hit the highlights of
‘Number One’, ‘Army Of One’ and ‘Don’t Come Cryin’’ they all be suffused with
the same enthused sense of occasion and passion. Jen D’Angora has an enchanting
hangover cat scratched cackle n’ snarl that could flay you across oceans, and
beat your bare behind with its witches broom. By the way, I first played this
while watching Wayne’s World and, as they would say, she wails. Verily. Spit ‘n’
sawdust 
Metallic Oi! antics from Texas, yes, maybe, but there’s
also dramatics enough (the imaginatively titled opener ‘Intro’) to curl Steve
Harris’s hair in his younger days (wonder what title he’d come up with?) and
a hardcore thrust that could spearhead a beach-landing. It’s guttural,
uncivilised grunt music, but doesn’t swap brute force for brains, though it is
brutalised in reflecting society at large. Lyrics are dispensed with like a
marine spitting out instructions in-between shrapnel and bone splinters while
guitars dive and dart in a dogfight overhead. The songs are a regimented
tight-ship, militaristic in their relentless advance. Linear in nature they
should by rights demolish and kick ass at the pass, especially ‘Fall’ where they
get it all RIGHT. The call and response on ‘La Plaga’ could be a drill-ground
stomp between sergeant-major and recruits. Pretty much punk as it should be
then, in these days that isn’t the insult it could’ve been once when back
way…not the spineless frat-boy toss that is all too eagerly ejaculated on us,
and lapped up in turn. 
Double CD ‘n’ DVD combo perfect for a vfm Oi! BBQ followed
by a home sofa-mosh session. With a slice of variety that comes with featuring
two different gigs over the two formats this is a fun outlay of funds for first
in line fan and philistine alike. Thanks to guitarist Marty’s sloppy one more
for the road wobbly thirteenth hand Thunders riffs dribbling at the bar
first thing in the morning makes their RamOi!nes vs. Droogs gang war (ayuss,
they be having a song called ‘Ultra-Violence’, natch, and another by the titular
moniker of ‘Clockwork Fuse’) rumble more of a sleazy-trash slither off a
plastic-covered bar-stool than more usual loogie-encrusted chumpy Oi!ks.
Shout-along party anthems abound in the banner headline slogans of ‘Addicted To
Oi!’ and ‘Safety Pinned And Sick’, cracking cans with their bare arse and
spraying the Fast, frenetic, and simple to become very fond of. Lower Class? The
high society of the lower caste if that’s the case. Stu Gibson