Know Your Product - The Best of the Saints

At the same time the Sex Pistols were pursuing "Anarchy in the U.K.," half a world away in Australia, Aussie punks the Saints were staging their own revolution. Their anxious, adrenalized R&B sound takes the reverb rock & roll riffs of '60s American surf, lay it in a rumbling, rolling bass undertow, and bring it to a boil with thundering drums that keep the pace crackling. Imagine the blitzkrieg bop pop sense of the Ramones if they'd beaten on the brat with Dick Dale's guitar. Lead singer Chris Bailey drags a Rotten sneer over the bluesy snarl of his vocals, as the band translates the Animals' refurbished blues for Richard Hell's Blank Generation. Their dedication to blues (given a punk edge) becomes more apparent as the album advances through these chronological tracks. Taken from the band's most fertile period with its original lineup, it compiles nine tracks from each of their first two albums, (I'm) Stranded and the masterpiece Eternally Yours, as well as a pair of tracks from the heavily Stax-influenced Prehistoric Sounds. Of special interest to fans are a pair of covers from their 1977 EP One, Two, Three, Four, "River Deep, Mountain High" and Connie Francis' classic "Lipstick on Your Collar," which races like a schoolboy's pulse in the midst of his first infatuation, and is twice as intense. This is a fine introduction to the band, though listeners might find themselves seeking the first two albums anyway.