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Electric Eels: God Says Fuck You (Homestead)

Chuck Eddy, Spin, April 1992

THE ELECTRIC Eels inhabited the same '70s Ohio milieu as Pere Ubu, the Pagans, X-X, the Styrenes (whose new It's Artastic: Cleveland 1975-79 is prog crap), Rocket From the Tombs (whose recent Life Stinks is Ubu-redundant), etc. Friends and enemies have been taping their old 45s and outtakes for me for years, but I never quite "got" it — just like Richard Hell's Voidoids, they came off like prophets of all the "hurtful guitar" (read: Everything else sucks) outfits that populated minilabels such as Homestead throughout the '80s: lopsided-to-forced rhythms (no bass, almost no drums), mewling singer with a lisp and a shtick.

Total word count of piece: 228

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