County
's first release following the less than pleasant dismantling of
the Electric Chairs
was this dramatic recounting of a New Year's Eve 1979 show in Toronto, Canada. Dominated by an absolutely phenomenal rendering of the already supercharged title track, it's a magnificent album, rounding up an intelligent selection of both the classics (
"Paranoia Paradise,"
"Fuck Off,"
"Cream in My Jeans"
) that brought
such notoriety elsewhere in the 1970s and the savage rockers that proved he/she was so much more than Just a Pretty Weird Face. Remarkable reinventions of
"Night Time"
and
"Hanky Panky"
are pure
garage
pop
brilliance, while
"Rock 'n' Roll Cleopatra"
serves much the same purpose in
's career-long catalog of self-definition as
"Man Enough to Be a Woman"
did a couple of years before. One can lament the fact that the original
Electric Chairs
weren't around to fire up the show even further, but this is still a great-sounding live recording, with a brutal band and a frontman in the finest fettle. The
punk
/
new wave
era really didn't produce many great live albums -- but here's one, regardless. ~ Dave Thompson