The Cramps
Songs The Lord Taught Us

THE REVIEW

1980: the first LP by The Cramps, "Songs The Lord Taught Us", is released, where rock 'n roll becomes a punk obsession and all its rebellious energy is transfigured into sinister and unhealthy effects.

As considered as it may be as an operation, combining nostalgia for the Fifties and Sixties rock 'n roll and rockabilly with the rampant punk disease, and as much as this may sometimes result in effects that are deliberately ramshackle, there's no parodic or insane intent in The Cramps' intentions. Their psychobilly (or vodoobilly, as you will) can indeed be called a hallucinogenic and psychotic reinterpretation fully in homage to the models. It should not be forgotten that this is still the music Lux Interior, the histrionic-hysterical frontman of the group (born in 1946), grew up with; although, in The Cramps' roots, there's no shortage of Stooges, New York Dolls, and Ramones. Musically, the result is harsh and scathing, accentuated by the absence of bass and, at times, a wild and tribal drumbeat.

The album strings together a series of covers and original tracks, in some of which the reference to Sixties originals is still very strong. It opens with Interior sinisterly sobbing domestic nightmare visions in "TV Set", then moves to an hypnotic and obsessive "Garbageman" among others. If in "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" the effect is that of a werewolf emulating Elvis howling at the full moon, "Zombie Dance" is the jumbled rock outcome of a living dead sabbath. The stuttering "Mad Daddy" is intense, while evident erotic curiosities sneak into "What's Behind The Mask".
Notable is the sick and mocking cover of "Strychnine" by the Sonics and the delirious transfiguration undergone by Dwight Pullen's "Sunglasses After Dark", two of the best tracks. On the whole, however, the cover of "Fever" seems superfluous (the dark vein lining the original is faint), but is nevertheless a due tribute from Interior & co. to "the Pelvis".

In essence, an album wild and perverse like these Cramps, among the icons of 80s cross-dressing and with an Addams family aplomb. While you wonder from which old comic book they emerged, the most effective image comes to mind: the memory of some low-grade horror film where Lux Interior is a visionary and eccentric vampire and the haughty Poison Ivy a sexy seductive she-devil, together casting their bizarre musical spells in the underworld of some New York cave.

Indeed, when the "Big Apple" had a black vinyl peel, it was worm-eaten by punk and etched with a crooked smile, akin to a Halloween pumpkin.