CRIMINAL RECORD N2 -RIKKI AND THE LAST DAYS ON EARTH

RIKKI AND THE LAST DAYSON EARTH -CITY OF THE DAMNED 45

WELCOME TO PART TWO OF THE ARTICLE WE CALL 'CRIMINAL RECORD' FOR OBVIOUS REASONS. AND THIS ISSUES FEATURED RUBBISH BAND IS 'RIKKI AND THE LAST DAYS ON EARTH' AND THEIR FORGOTTEN PIECE OF SHIT SINGLE THAT WAS (UN)KNOWN AS 'THE CITY OF THE DAMNED'.
by just looking at the cover with its back photo shot showing the band in full on 77' gear, and with the front cover depicting the planet earth being impaled on barbed wire you would (as long as you hadnt spotted the name) think that this band meant full on punk rock business. side 'A' starts the off with the song 'city of the damned' while side two is called 'victimised'. well punk you would think but oh-no.
in fact i have had many fruitless looks through whole piles of records and, much trouble trying to compare it with any form of punk known to man.
of the record itsself, apart from a few seconds during side one's intro which is ok-ish the song quickly descends into a hellish version of early ultrovox mixed with duran duran, but badly mixed with a generous helping of painfull keyboards, sounding like a bad human league circa 1982. they are in that sence 5 years ahead of their time.
to be honest ive not tried to find out what the song is about, the best chance of understanding it (if you are amoung the really sad that is) is when the vocals of the song go 'really wild' during the chorus that belts out the words "we're the wild boys" in a campy high pitched voice that tries to sound hard, a silly voice then follows this in a still loud and daftly whispered way "its the city of the damned".
competing with the vocals is a dreadful sounding organ that reminds me of one of those 'dont work' sonic weapons the americans devoloped during the cold war.
but while the song didnt get quite as far as making me involuntarily empty my bowels i did feel that anymore of this record would give me a headache, its really that bad, criminal in fact, a nicking is well overdue.

THERE, THAT WAS THE FIRST OF THE REPRINTED ZERO HOUR AND 'CRIMINAL RECORD' ARTICLES, THE NEXT WILL COME ONE DAY. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE ARTICLE MORE THAN I 'ENJOYED' THE SINGLE!