Cripples

Ever since Elastica made it OK to be new wave again, there's been little pockets of young bands forming that return to the herky-jerky, frenzied pop stuff with nutty organ/synth sounds that characterized that late-'70s era. Imagine if the Vapors were a garage band, or Gary Numan hadn't left his guitars with Tubeway Army. The electro-pop fizzy fission is actually sort of endearing in this case, since you can imagine these folks having a ball of goofs adding all those futuristic keyboards wily-nilly over their otherwise taut, fast, gnarly, snotty rock & roll. In other words, I bet these guys are too smart to wear space suits on stage, or other such temporarily amusing period tomfoolery. They just want to screw with things a little bit. (3288 21st St. #32, San Francisco, CA 94110; jerry@smartguyrecords.com) ~ Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover, All Music Guide