Erotic Grit Movies

Obviously, one just wants any album with a title as wicked-cool as Erotic Grit Movies to be a garage-rocking classic in the tradition of the Cramps. Song titles like "Girls Like It Too" and "Weird Things Can Happen" only up the ante. Yet while Erotic Grit Movies has its hard-partying charms, Farfisa organist Ami is matched only by the The 45's Trey Tidwell as a master of this über-punk instrument, and singer Jamie has seemingly no respect for his own larynx, given the abuse he metes out to it throughout these 12 songs. But the overall effect is less Cramps-like fun than a mixture of Fun House-era Stooges fury and the first wave of British punk bands' desperation. The songs are largely of the short sharp-shock variety — half of them are under two minutes — but even in those brief settings, the group manages to create both tension and release; in this context, a longer workout like the comparatively expansive four-minute closer "Sound Mutilation" serves the same function as the Stooges' apocalyptic "L.A. Blues," taking the album's aggressive aesthetic to its logical conclusion. Not fun, perhaps, but appealing.