Abbey Roadkill

The great thing about Crypt Records is that they are the perfect business model of branding. Digging through the bottomless record bin at the local record hut, a Crypt record can be spotted immediately: brightly colored cover (often green and yellow), with wild cartooney illustrations of a person with bulging eyes and bottles of liquor and assorted bones and flames floating about. The other great thing is that buying a Crypt record comes with little or no risk, because they all sound very similar. Now, this is not to say that the bands are bad or unimaginative (for the most part), just that the folks at the label have a very clear vision of their style. What all of this means is that the Los Ass-Draggers' 1995 debut, Abbey Roadkill (Crypt bands also tend to be punny), sounds exactly like you think it does. With names like El Brat and Bronco "The Greatest Lover," at best a rudimentary grasp of their instruments, and lyrics performed at a tongue-twisting pace, the listener just has to assume that songs with entertaining titles like "What About the F*****g Martians," "Gay Twist," and "Makin' S**t Like a Bear" have suitably amusing (read: juvenile) lyrics. They are like a pre-pubescent (i.e. less suave, smart, and witty) New Bomb Turks or Lazy Cowgirls. ~ Karen E. Graves, Rovi