Well, I bought this as a tape used, on a whim, and I have been a fan now ever since 1990, and of course have "all of their albums". These are very smart and creative and capable guys. Americruiser, included on this CD, is by far their most totally rocked out offering album-wise, and the engineering rivals the Butcher Bros on their later releases. They tend to rock out in spots on other albums, including the stranger Jesus Urge Superstar--also here, and yes, kind of varied and amateurish and strange and hard--but none as consistently as on Americruiser as a whole. That's my opinion. But why do I like UO? Because, they really want to rock, in many senses of the word and in many different ways, but they have too many brains to be critically dismissable, and just enough to be irritating. I mean, every groove on Americruiser rocks, but their approach, the structures, the simple playing and joining of dischordant chords and strange times, it gets your attention because they project it with a rocking vibe, as though all music were meant to be played through their perspective, but at first listen it is decidedly quite skewed. You have to kind of latch on to it, after a while, which isn't hard to do, because they have so much energy, and everything is loud and bombastic. It's all just coming at you in a strange arrangement,and that's where their brains came in. I think they broke up because ultimately they were just too damn smart to put up with the irritation of fame, the tunnelvision expectations of the common man and record producer. I love every album they do, because if nothing else, they do it with passion. It may sound strange, or reflect their general mood at that time only, but there is always a lot of heart in each song, and it shows. I suggest that EVERYONE goes out and at least buys Nash Kato's solo album. We need to support him so that at least his voice will not disappear. Like I said, I think these guys are very talented and creative, and in a world where everyone tries to immitate the now sound, you need these kinds of voices to slip up between the planks and suprise you every once in a while, inject a little notion of what can be done with music into the mainstream. Remember "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon?" How could the whole world go gaga over only one song from these guys? They are too frustrating to the music industry, because they stubbornly continue to do as they please, all the while showing their influences just enough to get people's attention. Well, anyways, I am obviously hooked.
Go buy Nash Kato's album.