How ineffably brilliant can an American band be? I don't know either, so let's consider this latest Cramps artifact instead: eleven cool tunes drawn from previous Cramps releases (Gravest Hits and the Alex Chilton-produced Songs the Lord Taught Us), as well as British B-sides previously unreleased here. You want pathos? Consider the plight of the "Human Fly" ("I got ninety-six tears/And ninety-six eyes"). Simple human pleasures? Try "Drug Train" ("All aboard!"). Adventures in modern living? How about, "I cut your head off and put it in my TV set"? As for instrumental chops, the aforementioned "TV Set" contains what may well be the shittiest guitar solo of all time; and the break in "Garbageman" sounds like a five-car pileup on the Jersey turnpike – psychobilly heaven. Or maybe you're just into state-of-the-art studio sound: Bad Music makes the entire grunge-infested, psychedelic-bootleg series Pebbles sound like a Quincy Jones production. But enough said. This is rock & roll the way it never really was on the radio, but the way you always dreamed it could be – drooling horrorama lyrics, great cheesoid guitar riffs, postlobotomy drum-bashing and a singer for whom inhibition is the dirtiest ten-letter word of all. Slurp it up, sleaze fans. (RS 417)

KURT LODER