Wiseblood

On this 1987 album, Thee Mighty Caesars strip their music down even more than usual. No female backing vocals, almost no organ (except on the instrumental “The Bay of Pigs”), and no covers of Sixties garage nuggets — the only song not to come from frontman Billy Childish’s own pen is an album-ending version of Alternative TV’s “Action Time Vision” that manages to make the 1977 original sound like Seals & Crofts by comparison. Childish’s vocals sound like they’re recorded over the phone; the guitars are wildly distorted; and the songs are all set to either a straight garage-rock stomp or a Bo Diddley beat (“Kinds of Women”). Like AC/DC or the Ramones, Thee Mighty Caesars only seem to be making the same album over and over. It’s the small, subtle variations that make each one worth hearing.