#chris d.

The Gun Club- Fire of Love (Punk Blues, Psychobilly, Post-Punk) Released: August 31, 1981 [Ruby Records] Producer(s): Chris D., Tito Larriva

No Way Out (1987) Roger Donaldson

Live at Larchmont Hall, Los Angeles, 1978.

Album Review: The Flesh Eaters - I Used to be Pretty

Get crazy!, Chris D. commands his Flesh Eaters bandmates over a martial drumbeat and snaky sax on “The Youngest Profession.” And they respond with a dystopian wall of cacophony that’s got madness in aural spades.

This is a highlight of I Used to be Pretty, the first new album by the classic Flesh Eaters’ lineup of D.; X’s John Doe and DJ Bonebrake; Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin; and the Blasters’ Dave Alvin and Bill Bateman since A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die in 1981.

Like the whole album, this track shouldn’t work. And like most of the album, “The Youngest Profession” does work as it careens from sanity to insanity several times over its six minutes.

I Used to be Pretty is a mishmash collection of new songs, reimagined Flesh Eaters’ numbers originally released between 1979 and 1999 and covers that include Fleetwood Mac’s “The Green Manalishi” and the Sonics’ “Cinderella.” The result is a vaguely psychedelic punk record that sounds like something the Doors might’ve made if they’d come along 10 years later and hailed from the East rather than the West.

Julie Christensen sings backing vocals on five of the 11 tracks and serves to smooth out some of the singing as D. could never be mistaken for a crooner.

The set hits a speed bump with the thrash-and-burn of “Pony Dress,” which kicks off a late-album, three-song string of bombastic filler that concludes with the Gun Club’s “She’s Like Heroin to Me.” Including this love-as-drug number in the midst of an opioid epidemic was a boneheaded move and the analogy just doesn’t work in 2019.

Thankfully, the Flesh Eaters redeem themselves on the dreamy, 13-minute “Ghost Cave Lament,” which closes the album on a soothing note.

I Used to be Pretty is a self-produced affair and probably the last time these aging punks will get together for recording purposes, which may explain the band’s unwillingness to excise the weaker material. And while less would’ve been more where this LP is concerned, eight out of 11 ain’t bad.

The record will be released Jan. 18.

Grade card: The Flesh Eaters - I Used to be Pretty - C+

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