Good God in heaven. This isn't rock'n'roll: this is brick-shitting insanity! The six bands enclosed in this CD showcase of medical curiosities (courtesy of Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation) are all very, very wrong indeed. It's fortunate, then, that they're also rather fine specimens of musical absurdity and that the six of them together make for that rare thing: a compilation CD where you don't need to skip any tracks. Come, let me show you...

The Special Agents are a B-Movie soundtrack of a band, the kind of people who clearly miss out on a lot (an unwise amount?) of sleep in order to stay up and watch such long-lost classics as My Toaster Ate My Brains or The Return Of The Revenge Of The Bride Of Frankenstein's Hamster From Beyond The Grave. Their songs start with thunderclaps, replace the vocals with high-gibbering and sound like they were lifted from Benny Hill: The Bloodlust Years.. Or possibly from a skater-movie made by strange betentacled creatures from Uranus. Needless to say it is a work of genius and I would offer to bear their children were it not for the fact that I'd be very worried about what I might get.

Possibly something like the members of Chuck, who are clearly an odd lot. I can hear every word they sing, and I'm still not sure what they're going on about. I suspect that this is a tactical move stemming from a quite reasonable fear that if anyone ever did interpret Chuck's Cramps-esque hillbilly rock 'n' roll warbling senselessness, they'd have them locked up. Which'd be a shame. However: despair not! For we'd still have Texas Pete to twang their guitars in an obscene manner which reeks of incest and illegal distilleries. Were any of the superheroes mentioned in their Superhero Stomp to hear said distressing ditty, they'd be driven by guilt of association to hang up their cloaks and take up knitting.

G.G. Action have clearly never needed superheroes: it's obvious from the first punk-synth-distortion chord that any of the band members could take Lex Luther with one hand tied behind her back. Their screaming Headcoatees-style sound is very loud and very fast, the sythns make it sound like it's about to take off, and the whole effect is very, very pleasing indeed. G.G. Action sound like a Damaged Goods band, and anyone who can claim that is alright by me.

Beachbuggy play trashy garage rock about cars and deathrays: the Stooges' crash-thrash-howl mixed with the quirky shouting of the Pixies. It ain't big and it ain't clever, but it sure does hit the spot. You know: the trash-death-swagger-grind-howlofwretchedfeedback spot? Unlike The Motherfuckers, who are clearly far too twisted to be trusted to hit anything with accuracy. They sing in a cheesegrating hillbilly rasp over music which sounds like the dead members of The New York Dolls and Guns'N'Roses, newly-resurrected and half-decayed, have joined forces with the Cramps and are playing in a flooded amusement arcade. They want you to dance, and I for one wouldn't dare refuse - but I'd make sure I remained on guard against stray band members creeping up behind me with a blunt instrument in their hands and their eye on my wallet. If they went anywhere near my mother, she'd brain ‘em with a frying pan.

Well, there you have it. I don't know what the hell they put in the water in Sheffield, but I want some.