Younger, Louder, & Snottier

The Dead Boys' debut album, Young, Loud & Snotty, stands as a superb document of the original late-'70s punk rock movement, full of nihilism and rage and just plain bad taste. These are the original rough mixes done by lead singer and punk rock poster boy Stiv Bators, guitarist Cheetah Chrome and engineer Bob Clearmountain before Genya Ravan was brought in to clean things up. What emerges from these alternate mixes is something akin to history reversing itself and the Bowie mix of Raw Power coming out 20 years later. There are plenty of useless overdubs that would later get scrapped for the released version, but the largely effect-less guitars are full of sheet metal, as opposed to metal, tonality. Everything on here sounds crispier, more wired, and so treble-accented that it ends up embellishing the offensiveness of the material itself, full of punk energy and electric scrabble for the chemically enhanced set. Even the tunes that were originally slagged by punk critics as sounding too metal emerge here sonically sounding more like Stooges outtakes, especially Caught With the Meat In Your Mouth. Given the meager recorded output of the band, this will easily find a place in the collections of the band's old fans. ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide