Go Go Killers

House of Mysterious Secretions                    (Down At the Nightclub Records)

Cruelly distorted demolition-chording chugs and rockets; a primal beat resounds insistently; Alabama Sharp's gutter-blast caterwauling rages and implores crowds in hedonistic euphoria, its febrility a thing of ghastly wonder.

Bodies strewn across hardwood jerk spasmodically. The walls drip with echoes scarlet.

This hysterical-like-Hasil disc will be issued in the EU later this year, Alabama Sharp told the present writer.

Recommended: "I Got the Bug," "Do the Caveman," "The Manster," "I Want a Woman," "Wreck N Roll Music," "She Loves Stitches," "My Wicked Heart"

Audio: "I Got the Bug"

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 Ghoultown                                                          Curse of Eldorado (Angry Planet Entertainment))

Organic evolution is afoot in the stark, desolate range. Always redoubtably guitar-lashed and trumpet-streaked, the Ghoultown sound now incorporates even greater swagger and ferocity. 

Recommended: "The Badlands," "Bullets Don't Argue," "Leave You In the Dust," "The Worm," "Night of No Tomorrows," "Eldorado," "Adios, Gringos"

Video: "Bullets Don't Argue"

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The Meteors                                               Dreamin' Up A Nightmare (Mutant Rock)    Skull N' Bones (Cleopatra)

No less uncaring than ever, and more splenetically blistering than milquetoastian pedestrians could ever stomach.

 Recommended: (Dreamin') "Dreamin' Up A Nightmare," "Unholy Roller" (These two were the only tracks available for review.)

Recommended: (Skull) "Dateless Nights," "Get Back In the Swamp (and Jump)," "Skull N' Bones," "The Curse I Am," "More Demons Than Most," "A Night In the Tombs," "Changeling"

Video: "A Night In the Tombs"

 Dictators

Getting the Band Back Together (self)

single

Without Manitoba. Lacks characteristic presence.

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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