The Morlocks

Uglier Than You’ll Ever Be (live in San Francisco ’85) (Voxx)
by Chris Adams

On paper, it looked perfect. They’ve got a good name, and the album title’s a classic. On the cover photo, all the guys in the band have hair that completely obscures 33-50% of their faces. And it’s on Voxx records. So, being no slouch, you think, “yeah, this is gonna be a fuzzed-out freakfest of Neanderthal ’60s-style psych-punk,” something that’s always welcome around here. And yeah, The Morlocks apparently knew how to deliver the garage goods if ya had a chance to catch ’em when they were around in the mid ’80s. The songs all blaze with a Them/Stones/”You Really Got Me”-era Kinks bone-grinding crunch. Unfortunately, this thing sounds as if the recording mic was packed dead-center in the middle of a 50 foot box of Sugar Corn Pops, nature’s most perfect food. Now, I know a lotta these garage bands pride themselves on their lo/no-fi “wyld and primitive” recording, and I can dig that, but really, this one just sounds like fucking garbage, a shitty Walkman bootleg that’s more hassle to listen to than it’s worth. The piss-poor recording just deadens what was no doubt an electrifying performance. Thud. Fuck it.