The Infections - "Kill..." (CD, Rip Off - 1997)

A nineties punk rock classic, period! If I was punk enough I would have stay only to the previous statement, true to the genre's attitude but I'm a middle thirties prick now and it's a dumb thing to pretend something I'm not now. At least my former 'punkiness' kept the honesty part, right?
If someone in those days would have said me that it's better the Rip-Offs died, I would have probably abused him. The history proved however that it was a necessity I can do without. Cause today and after countless repetitions, no Rip-Offs, no Supercharger and no Zodiac Killers could come close to The Infections' strength and balls! They were completely ferocious, totally supercharged and outright edgy carrying those Benzedrine guitars and a full Heartbreakers/Dead Boys/'77 (in equal doses) approach on their savaged creations, I mean WOW! They possessed three 'singers' and on their sole single posed with these infamous bleeding shirts for the cover, just like the Heartbreakers had and did, so I was 99% sure even before proceed that it's going to be a blast! And I was always more of a Shane White guy than a Greg Lowery. With "Kill..." he proved the better way he was the one everyone should mention. He didn't let Lowery do his thing here and thanks to evil powers of rock & roll, it was a smart decision! I mean, of course I dig Lowery and I do know that the guys exchanged some poison many times in the past and I don't care to get a side, cause I'm only interested to talk about music but Shane is nearest to what I have in me mind as 'punk rock'. Let's not forget that Shane right after created the mighty but criminally overlooked Loose Lips, OK?! Anyway, "Kill..." has a sliiiightly better sound than the Rip-Offs recordings (I'm sure I read somewhere that they recorded on 8-track when the Rips used only 6 tracks - two channels over in punk rock makes a difference I suppose), in a way more....hmmm 'fat', especially on (what else?) the guitars, which they spit up AMAZING amounts of distortion, tube buzz and energy; making me still wonder how this utterly 'in the red' shit captured so perfectly!?A to the max wailin' punk boulder for the generations to come.