Cheeseburger

Scooping up tracks from both of the New York garage rock trio's early EPs and adding a few extra tracks for good measure, Cheeseburger is a concise introduction to a modern-day blend of the snarky pop culture strip mining of vintage Redd Kross mixed with unapologetic worship of Iggy Pop and Angus Young. Two-minute blasts of proto-punk guitar raunch mixed with lead singer Joe Bradley's uncannily accurate Iggy Pop impersonation (seriously, "Tiger" sounds like one of the Raw Power-era demos) make for an entertaining listen on seven inches of black vinyl, but 16 tracks' worth of pretty much exactly the same bag of tricks gives the album a sense of stodgy aimlessness by the halfway point. On their own, songs like "Do You Remember?" and "Rats" are bracing hits of pop-punk sneer and sleaze almost as enjoyable as anything the Dictators managed in their heyday, but the album as a whole gets a bit tiresome well before its end. - All Music Guide