Review:

on 2011-05-25 CharlesMartel Said:

This was what music should have sounded like throughout the sixties. This sound was a cross between REAL RnB and what we would now call punk or garage music. Indeed, some years after the band split up they acquired the rather ridiculous tag of proto-punks. Daft, yes, but in a way it kind of sums them up. It is meant to be played loud and is one of those records which you can just imagine your Dad (not mine actually, this is a little too old for me) moaning about how this is not music. Like punk a generation later, this was music which pissed off your parents. The Sonics took the music of their generation to the extreme.

The guitars are sharp and ragged. The vocals are screamed, and often accompanied by a throat wrenching yell. One problem is that the melodies are often rather disjointed and lack a smooth flow. In some ways this fits the sound, but after a while it can become a bit tiresome, especially across the 29 tracks that make up this album (never say you were short-changed on this one!) And it is a nice touch that all the tracks are in the same order as they originally appeared on the band's first two albums.

But above all it is that atmosphere which comes with the album. There is a strong hint of menace about some of the songs on the album and this is in large part down to the lyrics. They pulled no punches: "The Witch" was a dangerous heartbreaker with jet black hair and an insatiable appetite for men. "The Hustler" was her male equivalent and an equally unpleasant character. This rather makes the songs controversial for their time. This isn't pretty music about falling in love with pony-tailed girls, this is about picking up whatever you can find, about bitches you need to avoid. Like punk, this is music for teenage guys struggling with puberty and acne and not knowing how to stagger from one hormone surge to the next.

The compilation represents a combination of the best tracks from their two albums, with a couple of alternative versions, of "Psycho" and "The Witch" as well as a live version of the latter thrown in for good measure. There are quite a few covers on the album, "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Louie Louie" being the best of them, but overall the covers are among the weaker songs on the album. In essence the band were a north west USA covers band who struck big time with a record deal. Some of the more interesting tracks on the album are the live ones which were recorded when the band made a brief, but ultimately unsuccessful reunion tour in the mid eighties.

This is essential music for its age. A real pity this band is not known wider. For some reason, after they split up they faded into complete obscurity and were all but forgotten. For many the Sonics were the essential garage band of the mid-sixties, the prototype for so many that came after them  often copied but never bettered. Thankfully, they have now risen to claim the recognition they so richly deserved. Listening to it now, it is staggering just how much this was to presage much of what was to follow. From the sharply distorted guitars and amps which seemed perpetually on the edge of feedback, the screaming vocals and the raunchy, close to the line lyrics, the Sonics were a band before their time.
Rating: 6/10