DMZ
DMZ (Sepia Tone 12)

DMZ probably thought they were making a Nuggets-by-way-of-The-Stooges garage-punk record at the time, but it's really more like a 1978 "?" & the Mysterians album fueled by a mountain of white powder. Most of the songs are loud 'n' dumb bluesy rockers with indecipherable lyrics punctuated by hyper screams of "Whoooooowwww!!!!" and "Yeeeeaahhh!!!," and a squeezy little organ playing around in the background. When the organ isn't present, it sounds more like Ram Jam than the Ramones.

The reissue positions DMZ as some kind of proto-Strokes street-rock, though it's a good deal more messy than that. I can't exactly tell whether it's ballsy and credible or ridiculously laughable (probably the latter), but I mostly like it either way. "Baby Boom" is pretty hilarious, with "Ga ga goo goo" lyrics and baby imitations. It gets very samey and cacophonous after awhile.

The album was produced by Flo & Eddie, whose musical career is about as unfathomable as anyone's … they were in The Turtles, then the Mothers of Invention, produced DMZ, and went on to do songs for "Strawberry Shortcake" … uh, take that, Da Vinci? 🤷

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Review by La Fée