Fingerprints Music

Reviews:

Norway's answer to the Butthole Surfers scandalized audiences in the mid-1990swith its outlandish homoerotic image, politically incorrect songs and wildlyunpredictable stage antics. Turbonegro's predilection towards pissing audiencesoff is the stuff of legend: the group's hedonistic stage show routinelyculminated with lead singer Hank Von Helvete firing bottle rockets out of hisrear end. On record, the group's output was every bit as eccentric: big,dumb rock songs like "Turbonegro Hate the Kids" occupied the sameuncomfortable spaces as tracks like "The Midnight NAMBLA," a denouncementof pedophilia that's intercut with the creepy sound of children'svoices.

Timely reissues of Turbonegro's Ass Cobra and Apocalypse Dudes-ateaser for a brand new record from the recently-reformed group later this year-demonstratethe paradigmatic shift in the group's sound during its brief heyday. Itstongue-and-cheek album cover artwork (which cleverly spoofs Pet Sounds) aside,1996's Ass Cobra is a brooding, intensive punk record that borrowsa lot of its dark gloom-and-doom imagery and breakneck gait from concurrenttrends in Norwegian death metal. 1998's Apocalypse Dudes, by contrast,has a much sunnier outlook and a completely different tenor: conga drums fillout an interlude in "Prince of the Rodeo" and the gleefully moronic"Rock Against Ass" sounds like one of Joey Ramone's odes to life'ssimpler pleasures. Some three-chord wonders ("Monkey On Your Back")have been interspersed for continuity's sake, of course. But ApocalypseDudes aims mainly for a big, teased-out '70s stadium rock sound: lessAlice Cooper than you'd like, more Frampton Comes Alive than youcan stand, but just enough Grand Funk to prove their hearts are still in theright place.