[.ca] Songs the Lord Taught Us

Un Essentiel Amazon.fr:
C'est Dieu qui leur aurait appris ces chansons ! Quel Dieu ? Un rougeaud cornu à la queue fourchue ! Franchement on ne voit que lui pour dispenser un tel enseignement musical. Même le "Fever" de la gentille Peggy Lee prend des allures démoniaques. C'est carrément la fièvre des marais ! Les autres reprises constituent, elles aussi, un curieux catéchisme : "Tear It Up" du Johnny Burnette Trio et "Strychnine" des Sonics. Rockabilly méchant, rock garage, swamp rock clapoteux : tout est bon pour ces affreux. Poison Ivy se prend pour Link Wray et use de la fuzz comme une diva courroucée. Brian Gregory se coince les cheveux dans sa guitare Flying V. Nick Knox tape comme un sourd sur ses barils de lessive et Lux Interior éructe, menace tel un forcené. Le vrai rock gothique c'est le leur, pas celui des pompiers de The Mission. Qui d'autre ferait une chanson sur un poste de télévision dont les boutons sont des yeux humains ? Et qui d'autre pourrait la chanter comme ça, avec cette conviction communicative ? Car, malgré le grand guignol, il y a chez les Cramps de cette époque, produits par Alex Chilton, une distanciation plutôt effrayante. Loup-garou ? Peut-être pas... mais complètement dingo : sûrement ! --Hubert Deshouse

From Amazon.com:
The Cramps got away with their Z-movie, zombie-rock schtick because they were so intense in their conviction that it had more value than middlebrow humanist pop. Descending on Memphis to cut their debut album with Big Star legend Alex Chilton, the band served up a thirteen-song punkabilly testament to drive-in anti-culture, replete with garage-band guitars and booming voodoo drums. Versions of "Fever" "Strychnine," and the Johnny Burnette Trio's "Tear It Up" competed with Lux Interior-Poison Ivy originals like "T.V. Set" and "I Was a Teenage Werewolf." Songs the Lord Taught Us was also the first and last Cramps album to feature scary-looking guitarist Bryan Gregory. --Barney Hoskyns

hitch a ride into the bowels of America:
The Cramps, like a Queen Bee, draw their mesmerised disciples into their chaotic world with their mutant strain of Rock 'n' Roll. It could be what Chuck Berry and Elvis would have sounded like on designer drugs, but despite the obvious reference points to the debris of a previous era, it's the members of this band that make them what they are. The Cramps started playing in New York city in 1976 and although the sound of punk was proliferating from NYC at the time, the cramps plunged the depths of Rockabilly - the sound of instrumental rock, surf, psychedelia, and sixties punk was only bettered by the drones and hiccups of front man Lux Interior and the voodoo guitar licks of Ivy Rorschach. End result? Voodoo Elvis on enough Acid to save Somalia. The Cramps don't pummel and you won't pogo. They ooze and you'll throb. 'I was a Teenage werewolf' is about as close to the Cramps aesthetic as you'll get. 'Garbageman' features the minimalist guitar of Ivy and the gurgled vocals of Lux as he try's to rid the painful angst festering within. 'The Mad Daddy' is Elvis on acid, simplistic Rockabilly - tight and taut. 'Tear it up' is perhaps the perfect synthesis of garage punk, rockabilly and psychedelia ever (has anyone else attempted it??) The rest is the sound of whatever upsets America's upright protestant ethic. Hitch a ride with the junkiest band on the planet; let the Cramps open your mind to worlds you didn't even know existed.

You ain't no punk, you Punk!:
The Cramps' debut album, 1980's "Songs the Lord Taught Us," is undoubtedly an excellent CD that delivers a one-of-a-kind slice of bizarre, hilarious punkabilly. While Poison Ivy's guitar strings are as warped and statical as a broken television set, frontman Lux Interior howls, twitters and belts out his vocals, rapping on the microphone and portraying the role of a hyperactive junkie prankster. Unlike the more polished recordings made in the Cramps' later years, "Songs" is devilishly raw and untamed; it may as well have come from a live performance at CBGB's. This CD has, of course, plenty of audio highlights; one of them is "Garbageman," a catchy anthem written especially for the open minded. What's quite interesting about this song is that its lyrical simplicity gives it pop appeal; "Garbageman" is sort of a cross between "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones and "Love Shack" by the B52's. Another excellent track on "Songs" is "Strychnine;" if you listen to it carefully, you will find it to be a rock parody of every 1960's beach party flick in existence. I myself can picture Lux and the gang in their swimsuits, bathing under the hot sun and enjoying a refreshing glass of toxic stimulant! Yet another track worth hearing is "Zombie Dance," a simple party song perfect for your next Halloween party; here Ivy's guitar sound feverishly wriggles like a slimy worm. The rest of the album is decent as well. As a whole "Songs the Lord Taught Us" exudes a garage-like atmosphere that does not exist in the band's following records. Loosely juxtaposing grisly murder, cheesy B-movies and upbeat rhythms, the Cramps have made their own mark in the more creative side of rock. "Songs the Lord Taught Us" is definitely worth the money.

Sacred:
This is one of my favourite albums. It's an absolute classic and totally unique. The Cramps are basically fantastic. If you've got a taste for the unusual, the dark, you like horror films and consider yourself an "outsider" then you have found your band. The Cramps do sort of defy catagorization but if I was to try I'd say Swaggering Psychobilly Punks from Hell, but cooler This is their long play debut. Just buy it, if you don't like it at first - learn

Joe Bob Briggs Meets The Rock And Roll Trio:
If Joe Bob Briggs had been a rockabilly singer (surely you remember the infamous - and funnier than hell - "Joe Bob Goes To The Drive In" C- movie review columns in the Dallas Times-Herald back in the day), and had appropriated Bow Wow Wow's rhythm section to put his version on wax (yes, children, this was still the day of long playing records when this stuff was cut), this is what he might have imagined. Except that the Cramps predated Joe Bob by a few years and could play Bow Wow Wow (like that was hard?) under the table, and the overall effect sounds more like Dracula trying on a pair of blue suede shoes. But why quibble? This slightly possessed quartet sounded as though they'd grown up on a steady diet of Ed Wood horror misses and the original Rock and Roll Trio - whose "Tear It Up" they turn into a miniature masterpiece of zombie schtick whose subtleties Ed Wood wouldn't have appreciated. Lux Interior and Ivy Rorshach made a pretty kitschy songwriting team and for the most part the stuff is pretty effective. ("T.V. Set" is an absolute joy, for one.) The real treat: if ever you could have imagined Little Willie John's classic "Fever" (either his original or Peggy Lee's megahit cover) being played as a very suggestive dirge, the Cramps have delivered it. After all these years, it's still one of the most deliciously subversive album closers you'll ever hear.

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