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Rating:
Certainly, to pull off an operation like this, if all goes well, you must be at least moderately unbalanced.
And I'm not so much referring to the act itself of entirely covering someone else's work: they weren't the first to attempt such a thing and (I hope) they won't be the last either.
The "serious" fact is that here we are in the presence of an absolute epochal fragment, one of those that intentionally or not, have made the history of "our" favorite music of all time. One of those with a capital I, so to speak.
A Menhir.
A Monument.
A Must
A Totem.
A, well.
And the risk of "getting hurt" by handling such a prickly subject is truly considerable and tangible.
Well: the tribute from these Californian indie-punk rockers (released in 1991 by a little-known label: SFRI) is frankly fantastic!
The complete reinterpretation of the first long-distance work—dating back to the late seventies—by the monsters born from the restless and volcanic mind of Mark Mothersbaugh and company not only does not make you miss the original—and even this would be a decent half-court shot—but it is an absolute joy for the ears:
and I don't think just for the fanatic/completionist or the "restricted" circle of fans of the mythological Akron group who know every single interstice of this album by heart.
Obviously the tracklist, ça va sans dire, is reiterated in a strictly uniform manner to the original.
What Claw Hammer, let's say, "add" is that touch of indie-punk urgency in the execution and a harsher—but not overly so—vehemence stemming from the years when this album was conceived and recorded that perhaps for structural/age-related reasons could not have existed in the original and lost 1978.
And so, here we have authentic and indestructible chunks of history cheerfully parading by: the cover of the cover of "Satisfaction" is something ineffable.
Not to mention the mythological "Space Junk", the spectacular duo "Mongoloid/Jocko-Homo", the ruinous "Gut feeling"... you'd have to mention them all.
The tracks are "regenerated" by the Californians' treatment without losing an ounce of the wonderful energy and original charm of the album that was.
In short: you must have understood.
I didn't like the album.
In fact: I didn't even like the original.
There you go.
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