Los Angeles LP

Musically, Los Angeles is almost infallible. Your Phones Off the Hook, But Youre Not kicks off with relentless immediacy as if youve jumped into a speeding car on a midnight tour. Doe and Cervenka trade lead vocals and occasionally Cervenka veers stunningly off course in vivid and blistering wails, a Siouxsie Sioux in Southern California. On top of Bonebrakes motoring drums, the songs are dark and doom-laden, fiery and mordant. X sings about drugs and violence and cruising and ennui, conjuring a mood that prefigures Hsker Ds Diane and Sonic Youths Bad Moon Rising. They stick it to the upper class with Sex and Dying in High Society and they finish with one of the best punk love songs of all time, The Worlds a Mess, Its in My Kiss.