[.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

The best Psychobilly band around:
Kudos for the title alone. `Songs the Lord Taught Us' is the best of the Cramps LP's. 1980 was a year of change in the music world. Punk had fragmented and was starting to spread its influential wings into Goth, Industrial & New Wave territory. And then we had for want of a better expression `Pscyhobilly/Rockabilly'. I can only recollect one other band who was popular back in the early 80's doing this sort of thing and that was `The Meteors' a neat little English Band. The `Polecats' & `Stray Cats' were far too mainstream for my liking & certainly weren't as grungy as the Cramps. For dirty lowdown jungle psychobilly boogie you couldn't do any better than this. Wonderful scratchy guitar's screaming against a pulsing drumbeat with Lux Interiors maniacal voice narrating the songs. Although not a punk band per se, they had more attitude than most with their uncompromising image and sound. The original Vinyl LP only had the 1st13 tracks that appear on the CD version & what a deal you get with the CD with 5 additional tracks. Excellent. This was one of my fave's back in the early 80's. My little portable walkman cassette player (remember those) was playing this thing to death. My favorite's here have to be `Garbageman' & `Sunglasses After Dark' - Hard no nonsense nasty dirty ditties with (tude) to spare. If you like the Cramps in any way shape or form then you probably already have this. If you don't then you really need to get it. Although probably not everyone's cup of tea I think the gritty garage feel of the songs (It sounds like it was recorded in a basement to me) & the grittiness of its sound is one of its most endearing quality's. For connoisseurs of early 80's post-punk music this is a must have.

• TV Set
• Rock On The Moon
• Garbageman
• I Was A Teenage Werewolf
• Sunglasses After Dark
• Mad Daddy
• Mystery Plane
• Zombie Dance
• What's Behind The Mask
• Strychnine
• I'm Cramped
• Tear It Up
• Fever
• I Was A Teenage Werewolf \oOriginal Mix\c\o*\c\oTake\c
• Mystery Plane \oOriginal Mix\c\o*\c
• Twist And Shout \o*\c
• I'm Cramped \oOriginal Mix\c\o*\c
• Mad Daddy \oOriginal Mix\c