...okay, i completely understand the urge these long-kaput bands have to – at long last! – issue an album in their own hallowed names: Hey, we were doing this shit twenty-five years ago, man, when hardly anybody got to put out albums! Now these fuckin’ kids come along, and they got a whole frickin’ catalog out before they’re even old enough t’goddamn drive! We paid our dues! We put in our time! We demonstrated adequate sweat equity! We want our album! FUCK YOU! ... which is, you know, fair enough. However, from a consumer’s standpoint, it’s kinda hard to pop a boner over records that are cobbled together haphazardly from live tapes, practice tapes, and a handful of studio recordings – often using multiple versions of the same songs. I mean, i understand why it’s gotta be like that, it’s just hard to get all lathered up over the results. The Transplants (“early Boston punk, 1976-1979!”) do have some pretty great songs. “Suicidal Tendencies” is surely indicative of some manner of parallel evolution (devolution?) whereby an Atlantic Division version of “Inside My Brain”-era Angry Samoans slithered from the primordial ooze contemporaneously with their Californian doppelgangers. But, i mean, fuckin-a, “Suicidal Tendencies” is on here FOUR DIFFERENT TIMES. “I’ve Had My Fill” and “It’s Your Own Fault” are on here thrice. Even The Haunted’s ‘60s punque chestnut “1-2-5” merited multiple inclusions! I mean, enough! Maybe instead o’ one band plundering every decomposing archival recording of theirs still in existence to fill up one CD with material of which much might be fairly referred to as “a stretch,” maybe three bands or something could gang up and release one CD with just their top shit on it. Then again, why deprive the older generation of the lifetime of joy having a bunch of boxes of unsold compact discs stacked up in their shed for years on end has given us young ‘uns? BEST SONG: “Braincase” BEST SONG TITLE: “Vegetable Stew,” although i don’t like vegetables. FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: Their song called “Police State” is the first song so titled that i can think of.
–norb (Dionysus)