It’s like wolfing down a Big Mac when you could have steak. It’s like guzzling Bud when you could have absinthe. The Star Spangles are second-hand men. These guys are so ’77 it hurts, but it’s a good hurt.

One look at the cover will tell you all you need to know, with all four members rockin’ the second-generation Heartbreakers look via Izzy Stradlin and Andy McCoy. They’ve even covered the Wayne Kramer/J. Thunders composition ‘Crime Of The Century’ (and it’s a credit to their pop suss that it’s probably the weakest tune here). There’s the cover shot by Leee Black Childers. Production by Ramones/Dictators/Golden Horde man Daniel Rey. They even got Richard Melzer to do the website blurb.

When they’re good, which is most of the time, The Spangles most resemble The Replacements’ famed mangling of The Only Ones’ ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’. Of course, it sounds positively low rent on the radio next to, say, AFI or Blink 182, but that’s its charm.
Tunes like ‘Which Of The Two Of Us Is Gonna Burn This House Down’, ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Crazy Anymore’ and ‘Science Fiction/Science Fact’ owe as much to The Sweet and Patti Palladin as Chinese Rockers like Perrett and Thunders. If anything, they make you remember that The Ramones started out wanting to be the Bay City Rollers.
So, I know, it’s only rock ‘n’ roll, not rocket science. But I like it.