Not to be confused with that “Takin’ the City by Storm” band from Wisconsin, this is respectably non-suckass fourteenth-generation faux-Brit Bay Area thriftstore street punk which i originally thought could suck my dick because dumpster diving is such a menial topic to start one’s album off with a song about (i mean, come ON, Song One Side One should always be about the grandly unquantifiable—Blitzkrieg Bopping, Cretin Hopping, Sonic Reducing—or, at bare minimum, about something so inarguably valueful—being with a Rock & Roll Girl, perhaps, or Seeing Her Standing There—as to render any debate regarding its appropriateness essentially academic); the band eventually persevered and won my heart via their knack for reassembling their disassembled punk clichés into new (yet completely non-innovative) forms which i happened to find pleasing. Well, that and it seemed like the singer actually wouldn’t mind sucking my dick, so where’s the fun in that? “Radio Video,” “London Girls,” and “Little Creep” all have that sort of “i dunno, it just came to me while i was tapping my pencil against my shoe in math class” punk rock feel that nullifies their own inherent stupidity; “London Girls,” almost certainly the stupidest of the lot, is likely the best (and reminds me of The Mess, which almost rhymes). That’s just the way th’ world works sometimes, m’man. One of the more aggravating aspects of the record is that the songs aren’t particularly brief (none clock in at under 2:02)—and the lyrics are generally just two verses and a chorus of one or two lines (e.g., “Radio video,” “I’m a little creep, are you, I’m a little creep born sniffing glue,” and “Lust in the city, lust and danger in the city,” repeated ad infinitum, are the choruses to three separate songs)—so i can only conclude that the band has got whatever the opposite of ADD would be (DAA?). My advice is to ditch the lame stabs at outright Rancidism (“Goin’ Down”), but to keep trying to sing like BOTH Johnny AND Sid—it isn’t every day i get a chance to experience such friggin’ versatility. BEST SONG: “London Girls” BEST SONG TITLE: “Radio Video” FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: “London Girls” is not the Vibrators song of the same name, but there is a Vibrators flyer depicted on the CD booklet’s interior.
–norb (Super Speedway)