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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Western Star

Crash Rebels
s/t
(self)

Sedition from the unspeakable beyond looms as delectably grotesque. Ferocity is the formula.

Recommended: "Pathetic Me," "Sick Of It All," "Black Smoke Rise," "Bowling Pin Ginny," "I Remain,"

Videos: "Sick Of It All"


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The Grave Escape
Bolt From the Black
(self)

Roots-rock musings in diligent constructions with riffs and hooks. Able to switch from hard-lashed momentum to introspection without breaking posture.

Recommended: "Gimme Some (Of What I Want)," "Mourning Coat," "Stone Cold Floor," ''Francesca's Fall" "New Bedlam Odds," "Couldn't Love You If I Tried."

Videos: "Gimme Some (Of What I Want)"
             "Couldn't Love You If I Tried"


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James Williamson and Deniz Tek
Two To One
(Cleopatra)

Famed for stints in the Stooges and Radio Birdman, distorted-chord mongers James and Deniz hurl knuckly garage-punk fists. The deftly dispensed change-up remains ever welcome in the ebullience of the passage.

Recommended: "Jet Pack Nightmare," "Progress," "Good As Gone," "Stable," "Climate Change," "Birthday Present," "Liar."

Video: "Stable" 

Cleopatra

The Moontones
Rockin' Across the Universe
(self)

Too Swing to be Rockabilly. Too Rockabilly be be Swing.Too dance worthy to pass by. Dip a hip.

Recommended: "Seventeen," "Lucky Lips," "A Fool In Love," "Rockin' With the Clock," "You Can't Stop Her," "That's All," "Fools Fall In Love," "You Better Dig It."

Videos: "Seventeen" (Bopflix)
             "You Can't Stop Her" (Bopflix)
             "Fools Fall In Love" (Bopflix)


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The Neptunas
Mermaid A-Go Go
(Altered State of Reverb)

Nothing wrong with hedonistic surrender in the sand.

Recommended: "Billy the Squid's Water Pistol," "Secret of the Sea," "Undersea Grand Prix," "Lord Jim," "Mermaid A-Go Go," "The Abyss," "Neptuna Car Wash."

Video: "Billy the Squid's Water Pistol"

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Jensen Sisters
Yellow Frames
(self)

Dulcet sensuousness is among the finer bounties in life's elegant cornucopia. Entrancingly aesthetic aspect of fiddle-imprinted "new wave retro country."

Recommended: "River Song," "Best of a Bad Habit," "Good For You," "On the Fringe," "Matches," "Yellow Frames."

Videos: "Yellow Frames" (live)
             "Good For You"


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Cherie Currie and
James Williamson
Leader of the Pack
(Cleopatra)

An ex-Runaway joins with an erstwhile Stooge to honorably cover the Shangra-Las' teen-lovers melodrama. On the flip, Cherie plus Wayne Kramer plus Marky Ramone reinterpret the scarlet nubiles' smoldering mini classic.

Videos: "Leader of the Pack," 
             "Cherry Bomb"


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Western Terrestrials
Back In the Saddle of a Fever Dream
(self)

Spin this platter, should some lack-wit ever opine western swing and real American country have no contemporary relevance. New sporters of Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen monarchical Stetson.

Recommended: "Who's Gonna Fill These Boots" (feat. Georgette Jones), "Roger Miller Time," (feat. Dean Miller), "Ethan Alien," (feat. Ketch Secor), "I Need You," "Flying Saucer Rock 'n' Roll."

Videos: "Ethan Alien"
             "Flying Saucer Rock 'n' Roll"
             "Roger Miller Time"


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The False Positives
Favorite Things
Feel the Spring Sun
Caveman
Digital tracks

David Harrison, formerly of the Voodoo Dolls, is but one of the spark plugs charging this many-splendored garage/power pop/punk melange. Theirs is a sublime alchemy.

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The Hi-Jivers
Knee High and Risin' b/w
Something's Gotta Shake
(self)

Blues panache doesn't merely inhabit this jumped-up work, but invigorates each and every joyous turn, 'til you find yourself all over the floor. 

Video: "Knee High and Risin'"


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