The Cramps

Welcome to art-rockabilly, a merger of the sensibilities and guitar styles of Link Wray and
Lou Reed. Actually, this concoction – like fried grasshoppers and chocolate-covered ants
– isn't half as unpalatable as you'd imagine. It turns out that the Cramps have reinvented a
modern version of surf music. They probably wouldn't see it that way, however. This is the
kind of semisatiric band that sounds so hot that you're afraid to listen to the lyric... More >

From the time they stormed a jaded--hence novelty-hungry--CBGB two or three years ago, they've been a joke that wears thin before it's over. "TV Set" and "Garbage Man" and a couple of others are everything they're supposed to be--archetypally rockin', outrageously funny. But when the songs are neither or even only one, the band's inability to sing, play, produce, or prance around your living room detracts significantly from your pleasure. Then you stop listening altogether. (Grade: B-)