When I worked in the video game industry, I wrote a lot of pitch documents—outlines of projects we’d like to do, written for purposes of convincing people to give us lots of their money so we could make the game described therein. Early on in my career, I was told that any good pitch document should contain a “statement of differentiation”—since videogames are rigidly categorized by genre (first-person shooter, platformer, puzzle game, et cetera.), the writer always needs to mention how their first-person shooter/platformer/puzzle game/et cetera. would be different than everybody else’s first-person shooter/platformer/puzzle game/ et cetera. (though not too different, because god forbid the gamers be forced to contemplate new concepts). The concept of “statement of differentiation” might prove helpful to the Erotic Devices, Berliner Ramones-core purists. Their record is certainly loud enough, tight enough, and well-executed enough, but, with regards to potential statements of differentiation between them and others of their ilk, I’m truly drawing a big frickin’ blank here. I mean, bands from twenty years ago who were clearly Ramones-derivative like Head and the Riverdales had numerous potential statements of differentiation (the Richies didn’t have one, but they were pretty much the first ones doing it, so they didn’t need one); am I too old to revel in a universe of pure form these days, or am I just missing something? Points for the excellent faux Sire Records label design, though; it’s way better than my attempts at one. BEST SONG: “Baby Be My Bone.” BEST SONG TITLE: “I Really Wanna Fuck.” No, seriously. FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: Cover art by former Swamp Thing artist Rick Veitch. No, seriously. ¬–Rev. Nørb (Wanda, wandarecords.de)