Rocket From the Tombs
Rocket Redux

Rocket From The Tombs formed around 1974 in Cleveland, Ohio, through the will of Peter Laughner and David Thomas. The former, who would become an intimate friend of Lester Bangs, plays guitar inspired by his idols such as Tom Verlaine (Heartbreakers, Television) and Lou Reed. David Thomas, with a voice almost sobbing, sometimes querulous, sometimes almost hysterical, would later become famous as the leader of Pere Ubu. Putting on Rocket Redux, a more or less official album of RFTT (Rocket From The Tombs), one is not struck as abruptly as if, for example, you had put on "White Light/White Heat" by the Velvet Underground or "Fun House" by the Stooges. It sounds like a normal garage music record, even perhaps a little too polished in sound to be considered such. Every track, however, if listened to with due attention, reveals, in my opinion, why American punk is so different from English punk: precisely because of the existence of Rocket From The Tombs in the U.S.A. From the moment of "Frustration", a high-tension piece concentrated on a practically nonexistent text, one hears the wild echoes of Neil Young, rooted in the territory and not just a disturbed and disturbing mix of references (and rip-offs) to the Velvet and the Stooges. The tracklist continues with "So Cold", which at times seems quite like an unlikely union between "Open Up And Bleed" and "Purple Haze" and that contains an obsessive, repetitive text sung in a harrowing way. After this song, here comes "What Love Is" which probably owes a lot to Zeppelin even though it is conceptually very distant from their way of doing things. It is followed by the epochal "Ain't It Fun", which would be ideal if one day you have to make a compilation called "Music For Failed Suicide", with the immortal lyrics "I've Broken The Window Pan with My Fist Right Thru The Glass, But I Didn't Even Feel It Because It Happens To Fast". It will also be covered by Guns N' Roses for their stupid album "Spaghetti Incident" (from the title you can tell that even they didn't know they could make such a mess), and it will be ruined just like "Raw Power" and many others, and will even be credited to the Dead Boys (who instead covered it in 1978). After "Ain't It Fun" it's time for the decidedly anonymous "Muckraker", which falls a bit into the banality of classic rock and roll à la Stones. The next "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" is nothing but a slowed-down and more guitar-based "Strange Days", but not less enjoyable for that: Trippy and stunning, but also very tasteful, it's the album's high point. After the final explosion (or collapse) of "30 Seconds" comes the quiet beginning of "Sonic Reducer" with an angry vibe that won't be picked up again until "Bombtrack" by Rage Against The Machine (a group I don't particularly love, but one that has a strong nervous energy). "Never Gonna Kill Myself Again" is another nice and self-deprecating song about self-destruction, which is enjoyable to listen to even if you don't know what it means (perhaps even more enjoyable for that reason).
The rest of the album declines slightly, especially in terms of ideas: "Amphetamine" closely follows the structure of "Heroin" by VU, even though it fails to surpass it in terms of lyrics or final outcome; "Down In Flames" is simply unbearable after listening to the rest of the record, it's, how to say, too much. We are not talking about "Sister Ray" or "L.A. Blues", but simply another bland and unremarkable song, like the previous ones "Muckraker" or "Never Gonna Kill Myself Again".
At the end, things pick up a bit, partly thanks to "Final Solution", which will also be covered by Peter Murphy (leader of Bauhaus) during his solo career; but especially for the self-destructive energy that "Life Stinks" has and for the obsessive and at times intrusive chorus: "Life Stinks, I Can't Think, I Need A Drink".

A very dense album, indeed, this "Rocket Redux". Perhaps it's too much to ask the listener to digest it all at once, also because, perhaps, it's not worth it. Nevertheless, it undoubtedly has historical importance, it's the clear transition from garage rock to punk rock, and the reason why a group like Richard Hell & The Voidoids were born in the States and not in the United Kingdom.