Rocket from the Tombs is one of those bands that a lot of people know about, but have never heard, because they never put a record out. Everyone who knows about them because the band’s members went on to form two of the best proto punk bands ever, The Dead Boys, and Pere Ubu. Finally, some dude took the time to dig up whatever recordings the band made, clean ‘em up a bit, and here they are.

Taken from recordings done at their rehearsal loft and two live shows in 1975, The Day the Earth Met the…Rocket from the Tombs is a monumental album indeed.

“Somebody came to me and spit right in my face / But I didn’t even feel it / It was such a disgrace / I broke the window / Smashed my fist right through the glass / But I couldn’t even feel it / It just happened so fast / It was fun / Such fun” from “Ain’t It Fun,” ought to give you a pretty good feeling of where these guys were coming from: early 70s, economically dying Cleveland, post industrial wasteland where rivers spontaneously combust.

That, my friend, will lead to some disenchantment, to say the least, and that is the recurring theme here a full two years before The Sex Pistols made it fashionable. This album is punk as fuck, so much so that even punks probably hated it at the time. Full of loud dirty guitars, minimal structure and bizarro rantings of singer Crocus Behemoth, Rocket from the Tombs took the baton from Iggy and ran, if only for a short distance.

Their two classic songs, “Sonic Reducer” (a straight up rock classic that will get you jumping around ) and “30 Seconds over Tokyo” (one of the greatest songs ever written), are both here, and both blistering. If you are a fan of rock in any way at all, do yourself a favor and buy this record, it is a link in the chain between Iggy Pop, and Black Flag.

- Bill Barry
(Smog Veil)