The Cramps - Fiends of Dope Island

My first encounter with The Cramps was in the late 1980's when I attempted to go to a Johannesburg night club that used the same name. After some research (non-Internet based, this is in the days before Google), I discovered that The Cramps were the band of choice for the sophisticated goth and/or alternative intellectual. You can read all about these psychobilly rockers here. I enjoyed bouncing around to some of their earlier stuff, with the stand out songs for me being "Human Fly" and "Bikini Girls with Machine Guns". At the time the Cramps broke away from the dreary approach to music that was the staple of the early goth bands.

Fiends of Dope Island seems like it could have been the double disk to one of their earlier albums. Maybe it was just songs they stuck in a time capsule and waited. I guess if there is a market for people who wanted more of the same, then this is perfectly placed. Its still fun though: catchy guitars, sexy blues riffs and songs about Satan. I made through 3 full listens unscathed, and found an occasional toe tapper, but there is no new ground being broken here. Apart from an occasional ghoul rising from the dead.