A newish one on me having only got
"Let's
Dance" & "Kick me Down" by 'em so on the strength of this round-up of
rarities, I'm not so sure I'd go along with Wayne Kramer in passing the
mantle of the MC5 onto them, as on the recent Shellshock Distribution ad, but then again, he's who he is, so he's allowed to. And it
has done enuff to
ensure I wouldn't pass 'em by if I saw a regular album. Even tho' I
wouldn't consider it essential listening for these ears, it's nice to not have another lot treading shallow
Stooges water (apart from the name o'
course, of course ). Naw, these
boys are surfing a similar wave to the Supersuckers melodic, punky
Thin
Lizzy meets The Ramones metal (& as anyone with half an ear left would
know, the Supersuckers are a damn fine proposition, except when I saw them a
coupla years ago, but that's another song) but in this case without the
country references (shame ) such as on "Generator"'s
18 wheel rollin-hypno-rumbling-chugg that would've done Mr. Randy Rhoads proud
( think "Crazy Train" ). If justice was ever done this would be an
international smash hit & be causing ruckus on dance floors all over the
shop. Putting my anorak & large specs on & heading off in the rain to the
train station there's a nice little nod to the siren wail of Motorhead's
Overkill in the geetar solo, too. I hope it's Overkill anyway, couldn't be
arsed to check this morning. Other standouts that've been rattling the walls of mine &, I assume, my good neighbours brains the last few days include the head-jamming opening squall of "Smalltown Killer" with it's Rose Tattoo psychosonic slide action & harmonic guitar solo reminiscent of Big Black's "Pavement saw". As Art says of a later track, "Slide guitar is an underrated aspect of fine hardrock". Buy that man a pint. Journalist baiting "Dirty Mockingbird" is a guttural thundercrack moshpit maelstrom of a song & "Those Days Are Gone" seems to condense the frenzied adrenalin kick of, say, The Weaklings 1st album, or even The Damned's, into one dynamite, firecracking tune. "The Night Billy Wanted To Fly" is a chirpy little ditty about a suicidal kid that steams along jet-propelled by the framework of Black Sabbath's "Never Say Die". Which is good, 'cos as it's one of the last great things that the classic Sabs did, it deserves to be picked up & ran with into atarmac melting stomp, and they've done some good advertising too, along the way. "Los Angeles", they say, is their best impression of X,which has got me tempted into trying to track some down after reading loads about 'em. Chance'd be a fine thing. There's also grand covers of The Boys' "Kamikaze" & Iron Maiden's early highpoint "Sanctuary". "I Wanna Die For X-Mas" is a killer tune, like JAMC's "Reverence" in tone but, err, different....& finally, I gotta say any song that features the line "& Wednesday turned to Sunday...." as the title track does, has gotta rawk. And, d'you know what? It fucking certainly does.
- Sidewalkin' Stu Gibson