The first volume in a series projected to analyze the punk phenomenon on a year-by-year basis, British Punk Rock 1977 assembles some of the less well-known but no less influential sides to emerge from that pivotal year. Collecting 20 tracks, it jumps from established cult heroes (Alternative TV's "How Much Longer," Penetration's "Don't Dictate," the Vibrators' "Baby Baby") to forgotten favorites (the Drones' "Corgi Crap," the Sniveling Shits' "I Can't Come," the Pork Dukes' "Bend & Flush"); some of it still holds up, some of it doesn't, but all of it remains a testament to its time and place.

The Long Ryders kicked off their major label debut, State of Our Union, with one of their most anthemic and most explicitly political songs, "Looking for Lewis and Clark," and that tune set the tone for the rest of the album – State of Our Union found the Long Ryders reaching for a larger audience at the same time that they were using their music to say a great deal more than they had in the past. Musically, plenty of roadwork had tightened the band's interplay to an even finer point than on Native Sons (Sid Griffin and Stephen McCarthy were both in superb voice, and their guitar work meshed perfectly), and Will Birch's production gave the songs a poppier sheen that still allowed the band's roots-conscious sound to shine through. Lyrically, State of Our Union took a long look at Reagan-era America as the gulf between the rich and the poor began to divide the nation, with "You Can't Ride the Boxcars Anymore," "Two Kinds of Love," and "Good Times Tomorrow, Hard Times Today" all exploring issues of economic injustice, and even the less obvious political songs often having a progressive subtext ("WDIA," a tribute to the great Memphis R&B radio station, deals with how the love of music brought together black and white listeners in the 1960s).

Despite its rather cheeky title, Greatest Hits 1977-1990 is a good place to sample the entire Stranglers output. From the squalor of the late-'70s material, to the smoothed-out gloom pop of songs like "Skin Deep" and other mid- to late-'80s neo-goth rock, this is a solid anthology that values substance over style and exhaustive track selection. For sure, a well-edited Stranglers anthology is the only way to enjoy them; they recorded way too much dross to spend time searching out all of their plentiful, marginal records.

Six years after the commencement of a major Elvis Costello reissue campaign at Rhino, his catalog transferred over to Universal, which had been releasing new Elvis music since 1998's Painted from Memory. Like every one of his previous two big catalog shifts – a campaign with Rykodisc/Demon in 1994, a jump to Rhino in 2001 – the 2007 series is preceded by a new hits collection, this time The Best of Elvis Costello: The First 10 Years, a 22-track collection of highlights that's pretty much exactly what it says it is. It is quite similar to the last previous single-disc collection, the 1994 Ryko/Demon set The Very Best of Elvis Costello and the Attractions, which also ran 22 tracks, 19 of which also appear on The First 10 Years. The three omissions – "Watch Your Step," "New Amsterdam," and "Love Field" – will not be missed by anybody looking for a new Costello comp in 2007, particularly because all three substitutions are better choices for the casual man: "New Lace Sleeves," "Almost Blue," and "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," which bizarrely wasn't on the 1994 set. With these three songs rubbing shoulders with "Alison," "Watching the Detectives," "Pump It Up," "Oliver's Army," "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding," and all the other usual suspects, The Best of Elvis Costello: The First 10 Years winds up being the best single-disc summary and introduction to Costello's prime years.

The Morlocks - Easy Listening For The Underachiever (2006) {Go Down Records ‎GOD027, Expanded Reissue rel 2008}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 294 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 105 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 16 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2008 Go Down Records ‎| GOD027
Rock / Garage Rock Revival

There are records that represent a remarkable event, and so is “Easy Listening for the Underachiever”, the return of one of the most relevant bands from the 80s garage renaissance: the Morlocks. The promise to reunite the Morlocks became true: now they are back with a new line-up and the result is “Easy Listening for the Underachiever”, the ultimate declaration of love to garage-punk, an album out of time and out of compromise. This is “blood, sweat and tears”, just take it or leave it! Now it is released for the first time in Europe, which includes an interview with the band and 2 live songs recorded in the Netherlands.

According to Jack White, Get Behind Me Satan deals with "characters and the ideal of truth," but in truth, the album is just as much about what people expect from the White Stripes and what they themselves want to deliver. Advance publicity for the album stated that it was written on piano, marimba, and acoustic guitar, suggesting that it was going to be a quiet retreat to the band's little room after the big sound, and bigger success, of Elephant. Then "Blue Orchid," Get Behind Me Satan's lead single, arrived. A devilish slice of disco-metal with heavily processed, nearly robotic riffs, the song was thrilling, but also oddly perfunctory; it felt almost like a caricature of their stripped-down but hard-hitting rock.