Blue Oyster Cult
The Symbol Remains
(Frontiers)

The good thing about reviewing BOC at this stage of the game is, I don't haveta expend TIME and SPACE describing how monumental a power and influence they are. You already know. (And if you don't: What are you doing reading this rock'n'roll blog, anyhow?)

I first got hip to the BOC guitar militia in '74, when I was 15 and my late brother Rick brought home LPs like their eponymous debut, Secret Treaties, and Tyranny and Mutation. And I knew they were SPECIAL in ways I'd only just begun to understand. The dynamism, the riffing, the hooks -- all were of magnificently organic construction. 

(It was also in that era that older siblings Rick and Kath brought out Creem magazine, which extolled BOC and from which, if you've not yet intuited, I purloined the very scribe mode currently before your eyeballs. Particular nods go to Messers Lester Bangs, Rick Johnson, and R. Meltzer.)

Listening to 2020 BOC, it's like the intervening annums have passed without diminishing their capacity for blowing down whole cities full of arenas. An UNSTOPPABLE FORCE, they can toss off cascading sheets of Heavy Metallic SCHIZZ without breaking sweats on brows. Burroughs' 1961 term applies, as ever.

The alchemy is in their inflamed bloodstreams and it thunders from all-but-aburst amplifiers. That kinda prowess separates WHEAT from CHAFF. And it'll always be worth the scant bucks a lifetime of reward goes for.

Recommended: All tracks.

Videos: "That Was Me"
             "Box In My Head"


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Frontiers

Mad Sin
Unbreakable
(Century Media Int'l)

A decade distant from studio surroundings hasn't ameliorated the full-frontal force of these Teutonic manics. If anything, time's march has exacerbated the reeling spectacle.

Recommended: "Are You Ready," "Moon Over Berlin," "Alles ist schlecht," "Hallucinate," "Aggression," "All My Friends," "Till Death Do Us Part," "Memento Mori," "Totgesagte Leben Langer," "Unbreakable."

Videos: "Totgesagte Leben Langer"
             "Are You Ready"
             "All My Friends"


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Century Media

Rip Masters 
The Rockabilly Man
Live at Alva's
(Wondercap)

In addition to being a cracking talent in his own right, Rip is emblematic of plebeian rockers whose toils keep music vibrant at the grassroots. 

Recommended: "Rockabilly Music, Cars, and Women," "Pounding the Pavement," "Rock Jitterbop," "Bare Knuckle Piano," "Well Well Well," "Big Red '57," "Cat On the Keys," "Get Right Up," "Don't Dog This Cat," "I Was Born To Rock."

Videos: "Pounding the Pavement"
             "Rock Jitterbop"
             "Don't Dog This Cat"


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Screamers and Sinners
Hypnosia
(Diablo Records UK)

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Classically stark psycho made peculiar by central, intermittently jazzesque sax. Agitation is satisfaction.

Recommended: "Hypnosia," "Ratman," "Radioactive Generation," "Arkakuso Stomp," "Planet Z," "The Sinner and the Screamer," "Go and Fuck Yourself," "Colapso Mental," "Eskolako Erregina."

Videos: "Hypnosia"
             "The Sinner and the Screamer"
             "Colapso Mental"


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Dasta and the Smokin' Snakes
Get Wild Or Get Gone
(Wild Records)

In the midst of this vintage-echoing rockabilly is hiccup prowess that captures glottal glory. Honesty cleaves real from pretension -- the signpost of significance.

Recommended: "Get Wild Or Get Gone," "You Hurt Me So," "Miss Tay," "Ain't Gonna Beg You No More," "Rockin' Wild," "Okie's In the Pokey," 

Videos: "Get Wild Or Get Gone"
             "Miss Tay"


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The Bad Detectives
The Best (and the Rest) Of...
(Western Star)

When he awoke, he was half off a club chair. The table top was wet. He didn't recognize the jacket he wore. The crowd was raving. A band up front was cohesive, funny, and celebrated low cultural references all at once. 

He lurched to the front, double vision blurred, and dug the Bad Detectives.

Recommended: 

CD #1: "Son of Kong," "Surfin' the Severn Bore," "Ford Capri," "B-Movie Scientist," "Weymouth Flyer," "Double-Neck Guitar," "I Fell In Love With the Mole Man's Girl," "Midnight Brighton Run," "Down In the Block," "[She's Gonna Give Tom Jones Her] Room Key," "Shapards Barton Special Agent," "What Happened To Buster Crabb?," "Junk-Shop Guitar."

CD #2: "Howlin' For My Baby," "Crawdaddy Simone," "What To Do," "Monster Rock," "Twister Vacation"," "[I Had the} Strangest Dream," "Cadillac Under My Christmas Tree," "Go-Go Surfin' Santa," "Black-Eye Friday."

Videos: "Son of Kong"
             "Surfin' the Severn Bore"
             "B-Movie Scientist"
             "Twister Vacation"


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Western Star

Sharks
Recreational Killer
(Western Star)

New 10" vinyl issue of the band's early '90s release. Explores psycho's more grisly, racy, and skeletal promises.

Recommended: "Screw," "Bye Bye Girl," "Recreational Killer," "Hooker," "Morphine Daze," "Surfcaster," "Schizoid Man," "Scratching My Way Out."

Videos: "Screw"
             "Hooker"
             "Scratching My Way Out"


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