The Boys

About as punk in the end as the Vibrators -- and just as enjoyably smart/dumb as that legendary psuedo-sneering bunch -- the Boys never forgot to season their smash and bash with keyboards and a good guitar solo here and there. Meanwhile, in Reid, the group had one of the better singers around, and certainly one of the most energetic. It wasn't enough to ensure them true immortality, but, as The Complete Singles Collection shows, the Boys transformed early glam ramalama spiked with more than a little Mott the Hoople in just the right foul-mouthed way. "Brickfield Nights," their most open nod to the nostalgia-laden spirit of Ian Hunter's bunch, is the standout, unsurprisingly covered by Die Toten Hosen on their Learning English Volume One punk tribute album. As the intentionally rougher and cruder Yobs, the Boys' rudely entertaining Christmas songs may have given the group most of its immortality, represented here with their street pub level brayalong rip through "Silent Night." However, when it came to their straight-up songs, the Boys had some true flashes of greatness. "Soda Pressing," for instance, is just fantastic, everyone firing off with relentless quick-burn energy and the recording quality making everything smash through the speakers -- the comparatively buried vocals aren't a problem, really, so good are the end results. The inevitable Ramones influences crop up -- "First Time" might as well be a tune by the bruddas from the first album or so -- while the bizarro transformation of "Terminal Love" into Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" makes for entertainment. Another Yobs "classic" turns up as well -- a hyper-Cockney version of "The Worm Song" (as in "nobody likes me, everybody hates me...") which just might be the perfect way to get rid of unwanted guests, especially with the goofball ending. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide