Flamejob

THE CRAMPS: “Flamejob” (Creation)

ONE OF the most important rock bands of our time, the Cramps breathed life back into the long-dead corpse of rock ’n’ roll in the late Seventies by applying the anarchic energy of punk to the most primal of rock’s sources – wild, swinging rockabilly of the Sun Records variety. What made them truly great was their warped, macabre horror-comic vision, which captured the imagination of post-punk youth, spawning dozens of inferior imitations (Meteors, Guanabatz etset) as well as providing spiritual inspiration for the groundbreaking swamp-punkabilly work of the Gun Club and Bad Seeds.

Time hasn’t dulled their enthusiasm, of course, but it has transformed them from an inspired by often painfully amateurish garage racket into a genuinely tight, powerful, ass-kickin’ rock ’n’ roll band. Flamejob continues their inexorable tendency towards straight rockabilly, and it kicks from start to finish. The opening track, ‘Mean Machine’, is an instant Cramps classic, with Lux Interior growling threateningly over a guitar din that would deafen Gallon Drunk. Like everything they’ve done, it sacrifices lyrical profundity for pure visceral kick-in-the-groin power: “This ain’t no art from the bottom of a penthouse floor/Rip out your brains if you got ’em/And throw ’em out the door.”

This is rock ’n’ roll at its breathtaking best, alternately terrifying and hilarious, menacing and fun, with all the band’s obsessions – fast cars (‘Sado County Auto Show’), pharmaceutical oblivion (‘Let’s Get Fucked Up’), female genitalia (‘Nest Of The Cuckoo Bird’) – still on their warped minds. Poison Ivy’s exhilarating Link Wray-on-strychnine riffing dominates the maniacal ‘I’m Customized’, a sort of a bastard son of ‘Shakin’ All Over’ which disintegrates into unlistenable guitar noise as Lux screams “Flames!!! Flames!!! BURRRRRRRN, BABY, BURRRRRRRN” as only the Garbageman can. There’s also the obligatory ‘Naked Girl Falling Down The Stairs’ as well as an eloquent defence of hedonism on ‘Let’s Get Fucked Up’: “Let’s get fucked up/Let’s get fucked up/Let’s do some stuff/And get fucked up/Tomorrow we’ll feel like we was hit by a truck/But now let’s get fucked up.” A wise philosophy in these complex times.

And, as usual, the Cramps have included a few cover versions of obscure rockabilly songs, in keeping with their policy of introducing diehards to the forgotten heroes of trash culture. On Junior Thompson’s ‘How Come You Do Me?” Lux goes through a range of Elvissy shudders and hiccups while Slim Harpo’s ‘Strange Love’ and Hayden Thompson’s ‘Blues Blues Blues’ have a more laid-back feel. Their rendition of Keith Courvale’s ‘Trapped Love’ is as melodic as anything the Stray Cats ever did, and far more spirited. None of these songs has the astonishing frontal-lobotomy impact of ‘Surfin’ Bird’ but all are worth repeated listens. The LP closes in quiet, sinister fashion with a dramatic cover of the classic ‘Route 66’, taking you down the famous highway through a Deep South wonderland immortalised in song: it’s the album’s most understated cut, and possibly its strongest.

Flamejob is slightly less intense and more polished than their early work, but it’s still five-star Crampabilly, and like Gene Vincent, Screamin’ Jay or the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, its crazed assault will still echo long after today’s flavour-of-the-month has been forgotten.

• Craig Fitzsimons