Other reissues out this month.
The Nuthins
1 Step Forward… Further Steps DETOUR
You’d be forgiven for mistaking bowl-cut ’n’ Chelsea-booted 90s Salisbury garage quartet The Nuthins for an actual pep-pilled, hep-cat combo straight out of mid-60s Nuggetsville USA. This 33-track raveup’s attention to detail and unbridled mania is irresistible. 8/10
Peter And The Test Tube Babies
The Complete Singles CAPTAIN OI!
Punk Pathetique. What was that all about? Sussex louts P&TTTB effectively defined this tirelessly self-sabotaging genre with their indie-chart-bothering run of almost humorous ‘hits’. And they’re all here (including 1982’s Banned From The Pubs) on two CDs. 6/10
Virgin Prunes
ANew Form Of Beauty BMG
Irish post-punks the Virgin Prunes featured Gavin Friday (before he was Gavin Friday) and Dik Evans (before he was U2 Edge’s brother). Imagine a glam Birthday Party or a funkless Pop Group. Now imagine buying two CDs of their edgiest, wilful rackets. No? Me neither. 4/10
Xmal Deutschland
Early Singles 1981-1982 Sacred Bones
Hamburg goths Xmal Deutschland’s earliest vinyl efforts are wearingly amateurish in their execution. No one seems to be having much fun or looking terribly hard for a tune. Incubus Succubus is alleged to be some sort of genre classic but, bloody hell… Great hair, though. 4/10
Chris Spedding
Songs Without Words ESOTERIC
Post-Jack Bruce-associated emergence, the ace guitarist, whose future could be best defined as the point at which the Sex Pistol/ Womble Venn diagram intersects, made a Motorbikin’-free, tromboneinfused prog-jazz album he doesn’t like to talk about. Nice… 6/10
Various
Moving Away From The Pulsebeat CHERRY RED
An unreliable cove, yer ‘post-punk’. Abroad indiscriminate church of a non-genre that can either mean ‘punk mk.II’ (PiL) ’music indebted to punk’ (Killing Joke) or ‘music too poor to be described as anything else’ (O Level). Here’s five CDs of all three. Best get the beers in. 7/10
Alice Cooper
Theatre Of Death EARMUSIC
It was a decidedly 80s metal-inclined Coop (with Pretty Boy Floyd’s Keri Kelli on lea
