(Gearhead)

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Following on the heels on their brilliant comeback album, The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed, Riff After Riff collects songs off the UK foursome's Japanese only EP Riff After Riff After Motherfucking Riff along with bonus tracks and raities, to introduce them to the American market that has so ignored them over the years. Now, finally touring Stateside opening for their biggest fans The Darkness, The Wildhearts are finally proving to us Yanks what those bastard Brits have known for well over a decade: The Wildhearts are one of the best bands on the planet. Fans of the aforementioned Darkness, the Foo Fighters, Redd Kross, The Hellacopters, Cheap Trick, and even Metallica and Motorhead, that haven't hear this band simply must drop everything they are doing and go pick up any one of their power-pop-gone-extremely-metal-by-way-of-punk albums. Riff After Riff is a damn good place to start.

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From the hook-laden pulp sugar of "Stormy in the North, Karma in the South" to the brutally heavy "Lake of Piss," The Wildhearts refuse to be pigeonholed, hopping from genre to genre with ease while retaining their hard edge and keeping their sugar-coated vocals firmly in tact. It's hard to imagine a punk or metal fans not being impressed by the sheer heart-stopping power of cuts like "Action Panzer," "Return To Zero," or "Bang!", yet it's even harder to imagine why a song like "The People That Life Forgot" wasn't a worldwide smash hit.

Bottom line is, there's a little something here for everyone if you like your rock hard, and your pop even harder.

Caution: geniuses at work.

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