Grave Disorder

Grave Disorder

The Damned are back and--thank hell--all their faculties are intact. These superannuated punks have ceaselessly provided live music for Britain's gnarly pallbearers to pogo to, but <I>Grave Disorder</I> is only their fourth studio album in 16 years (and the first to feature bereted loon-ball Captain Sensible since 1982). Rat Scabies has been replaced by ex-English Dogs tub-thumper Pinch, while Dave Vanian remains at the vocal helm. Vanian even gets to sing a manly voiced love song to missus and bassist Patricia Morrison (Sisters of Mercy), which humorously robs Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" of a few chords. Vanian is at the top of his game: "Absinthe," his tribute to the hallucinogenic dishwashing liquid of turn-of-the-century Paris, is a wonder; "Amen," a grimly insurgent anti-religion rocker with clanging church bell samples, is hilarious; and the Andrew Lloyd Webber treatment on the brilliant "Beauty of the Beast" (Vanian's tribute to the flesh-crawling artfulness of the vintage black and white horror flick) only makes you mad that the Damned never got around to doing a gothic version of <I>Phantom of the Opera</I> in their 1980s heyday. Even so, this album is neat, neat, neat all the way and perhaps the finest album the Damned have ever made. <I>--Kevin Maidment</I>