Crash and Burn

Sick Again (Traktor 7)
by Craig Regala

Punk rock’n’power boogie-rooted rock and fucking roll. Keeping the tempos in the mid-quick range, the guitars set on “stun,” the drums set on “stomp,” Sick Again mines ore from the same vein as The Candy Snatchers, B-Movie Rats, and Electric Frankenstein, although they have a slightly flashier edge in their guitar riffs and use the relaxed sustained suckerpunch that works wonders for the Supersuckers. That this may refer to bullet belt-era Thin Lizzy as much as anything’s a plus in this house, a House Built On Rock.* The hooks aren’t pop hooks but guitar riffs that support enough songcraft to keep you lifting the laser beam and hitting your new favorite tune over and over.

If anything could be labeled kick-ass, it’d be stuff like this. Rock and Roll, by definition, is a physically-presented thing allied with dancing, jumping around, and “doing it.” So this record is part and parcel of the same impulse that turns up on the radio and, if lucky, in arenas now and then. If the Roadsaw boys were copping Aerosmith in big ol’ doses, Crash and Burn have carved off a chunk of swaggering AC/DC If You Want Blood… beat-ass to help fill out your MDR** of rockin’ out and pump up their scumdog rocker blues. Guitars spray post-Dolls Chuck Berryisms all over the room, drums flex and thump along to keep your blood pressure high, the singing snakes from stage to stripper to sun-up in three easy steps, and the bass throbs like your head the next morning. A keeper.
(1259 Cambridge St #2 Cambridge, MA 02139)

* In our marriage vows, my wife picked a passage that reads “This marriage shall last forever, for it is not built on sand, it is as a house built on rock.” My wife’s righteous.
** Minimum Daily Requirement. You guys don’t take vitamins, huh?