ReVolting

For aficionados of that snotty late 70's sound favoured by such bands as the aforementioned Snivelling Shits, The Nipple Erectors and of course Raped, this Psykik Volts' compilation from Damaged Goods Records is a must. 12 tracks of grotty, phlegm-drenched punkitude, complete with chugging, raw guitar and twiddly demented nursery-rhyme riffs, hyperactive drumming and sneering, sickly vocals. This musical cacophony will restore your faith in all things loud and filthy. The opening track, Horror Stories No.5, is worth the asking price alone. It's a glorious slice of raucous new wave and is an utter joy to behold. It opens all heavy breaths and evil cackles and then kicks in with that well-known spooky blues riff, a garage-rock staple that can be heard in The Sonics' Strychnine, and traced back to at least as early as Bessie Smith's Blue Spirit Blues. From there it descends helter-skleter into a freakish circus ditty of exhilarating punk noise, wild and dizzying. This is music that makes you want to down several scrumpies, pull on your day-glo socks and throw yourself about, arms flailing like an electrocuted spastic. In a similar vain is the excellently titled Totally Useless, a should-be classic of self-loathing and paranoia, which thumps along nicely and includes the awesome lyric "wandering round the supermarket, wondering what went wrong", its message of fatalistic futility pinned precariously to a bastardized rendition of Hall of the Mountain King. The rest of the album rarely lets up, and rockets on, occasionally becoming cleaner, more poppy in sound but never losing it's spirit. From a Lover to a Friend, recorded in 1997 (by Victor Vendetta, and unrelated to the original band) is a break from the ramma-lamma noise rock. Instead an almost tender harpsichord opening leads to near orchestral majesty akin to a budget version of an early Muse demo, complete with distorted, melancholic vocals and haunting Suspiria-style piano. One slight gripe with the CD is the sheer lack of band information. We're told some of the tracks have been re-mastered and even re-recorded, but rather annoyingly not which and to what extent. This is particularly annoying for collectors of this music, where authenticity is important and for whom reading the testimonials of various punk also-rans holds a certain pleasure. This aside, as a document of the era which championed passion and amateurism, Psykik Volts' Re-Volting is indispensable, and an utter thrill.