(International) Noise Conspiracy
(Vagrant)
They ease into the politics this time with a psychedelic instrumental cut that could pass for the Doors making off with the riff to "Purple Haze" while waiting for the Lizard King to stagger in. And the second song hits like a mash-up of "Just What I Needed" and "Summer of '69" as Greg Kihn might have written it. The third song leaves you wondering if maybe these Marxists have traded their copy of Nuggets for some old Joe Jackson records.
And just when you're starting to wonder where the raw garage-punk swagger of "Survival Sickness" went, it starts to work its way back in. There's the organ-fueled intro of "Arm Yourself," where Dennis Lyxzen picks up where the Clash left off with "If they come in the morning, how you gonna go," by which point the rhythm has shifted to skittering funk as the Clash would have done it on the seventh side of Sandinista!. It's when the Swedes retreat to more familiar that The Cross of My Calling really hits its stride, though -- the maximum R&B stomp of "I Am The Dynamite" or the screaming garage-punk abandon of "Black September."
Standout Tracks: "I Am The Dynamite," "Black September." A. WATT










