Initially, I was going to grouse about the production sounding like duct tape was involved, but them I realized that the speakers in the mean machine were blown from a slab of black metal I was blasting earlier. Good thing it wasn't my car. On a stereo that's not hemorrhaging, "Riding Shotgun" sounds boss. The Nifters take up where the Backyard Babies left off when they turned into Def Leppard, playing sleazy rock and roll that rides the thin white line between punk and metal, but remaining too cool for either. The guitars, courtesy singularly named twin fireballs Mats and Johan are as acidic as a bellyful of rancid tomato juice, and Johan's leads spit a nasty venom, like a young and savage Mark Arm in Mudhoney's Superfuzz days. Yeah, I know Mark Arm actually was young and savage back then, motherfucker, that's why I mentioned it. The Nifters weren't even born yet when the MC5 were dodging bottles and rocks in the streets of Motor City, but they've heard the call anyway, and they report to duty armed to the tits with Motorhead's speed fetish, the Dead Boys' suicide swagger, and even some of the gang war howling the early Misfits were known for. Ok, so it ain't no new blueprint for the next big thing, but as they say right here in "Something Goin' On", right between the rubber legged Stooges break -downs, "We're gonna rock until were ready to fall", and brother, that's all I ever asked out of a rock and roll band. Riding Shotgun is knife fighting music, and if I know you, you're half a bottle away from your next nasty incident, do you'd better snap this record up quick to ensure a cinematic ambulance ride.