Messin'

Opening with 's title track, which builds on ' intense riffing and the killer vocals of , , and is pretty intense and involving from its very first bars. It's also damned topical and serious, for all of the free-wheeling spirits and the complexities that go into the playing. And the result is a spellbinding whole, featuring some astonishing keyboard flourishes by himself (who ventures into and territory on even as the rest of the band seems to be emulating ) and killer guitar from , while lay down the rhythm section like a pair of articulate pile-drivers. They pretty much stomp their way through their rendition of 's and do a gorgeous high-wattage rendition of The whole record comes out somewhere in the middle of , along with (amazingly enough) topical , and does no violence to any of the genres -- and the band even works in a loose-limbed version of as a finale. In a way, it's surprising from hearing this record that it took this band another two years, and an embrace of one of 's songs, for to become truly well known, because all of the ingredients were in place, and their genre-bending sound was only the best, most accessible kind. The album was also issued with a different cover as , but has become the reissue title. ~ Bruce Eder