Grave Disorder
The Damned are back and--thank hell--all their faculties are intact. These superannuated punks have ceaselessly provided live music for Britain's gnarly pallbearers to pogo to, butGrave Disorderis only their fourth studio album in 16 years (and the first to feature bereted loon-ball Captain Sensible since 1982). Rat Scabies has been replaced by ex-English Dogs tub-thumper Pinch, while Dave Vanian remains at the vocal helm. Vanian even gets to sing a manly voiced love song to missus and bassist Patricia Morrison (Sisters of Mercy), which humorously robs Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" of a few chords. Vanian is at the top of his game: "Absinthe," his tribute to the hallucinogenic dishwashing liquid of turn-of-the-century Paris, is a wonder; "Amen," a grimly insurgent anti-religion rocker with clanging church bell samples, is hilarious; and the Andrew Lloyd Webber treatment on the brilliant "Beauty of the Beast" (Vanian's tribute to the flesh-crawling artfulness of the vintage black and white horror flick) only makes you mad that the Damned never got around to doing a gothic version ofPhantom of the Operain their 1980s heyday. Even so, this album is neat, neat, neat all the way and perhaps the finest album the Damned have ever made.--Kevin Maidment