Fast forward to 2003, when Rocket From The Tombs regroup to answer the unasked question, "what would Sonic Reducer sound like if played by a bunch of fifty-year-olds who haven't seen each other in years?" Bizarrely enough, the answer is a wholly unexpected and completely welcome "fantastic." With Richard Lloyd of Television on board providing guitar support, and with decades of experience behind them, Rocket Redux pulls the haze of tape hiss, methamphetamine shakes, and teenage mania aside to reveal a group of men with more energy than a schoolful of teenagers playing a set of songs which uniformly deserve to be all time classics. Everything works, especially the way that the dual Richard Lloyd-Cheetah Chrome guitar attack and Dave Thomas' strained growling vocals turn decades-old demos into modern-day monsters. The drug hangover of "Ain't It Fun," the adrenaline-fueled punch of "Sonic Reducer RFTT" and the surging "Frustration" alone are worth the price of admission, but every one of the twelve tracks on Rocket Redux proves that Rocket From The Tombs deserve every last word of their legend.

Please excuse me. I need to go enjoy these records while they last, because in less than forty-eight hours, they're coming to give me a minivan, a haircut, and a backache.

Catch Rocket From The Tombs/Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome on tour with Terri Texas Bomb now!
8/6, St. Louis MO, The Creepy Crawl
8/7, Columbus OH, Club 202
8/8, Akron OH, The Lime Spider
8/9, Richmond VA, Nancy Raygun
8/10, Baltimore MD, Side Bar
8/11, Passaic NJ, Connections
8/12, New York NY, The Continental

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