Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Originally an Oregonian outbreak in the pre-teen years of domestic Punk, RV’s done some gear shifting and beer swilling in their time, logging mileage in every backwoods, back alley, truck stop, stop over that had ‘em big enough to have ‘em… and here they be, two decades and a few bumps and belly flops later, lasting long enough to have someone sing their praise on the back fucking cover.  

And don’t be fooled by the name, they sound every bit as vile as the title suggests… and imagine, this is they at their, most “musically formidable.”  

“The Cheesesteak Years” is a well titled and tightly wound comp that covers their seven year stretch from the bowels of butt ugly into the fighting streets o’ Philadelphia; a place where many friends were made, toasts were shared, butts were kicked, and memories massacred at the slightest hint of Mummer… So from about ’95 till lately, they rocked and repulsed anyone within earshot—friends, neighbors, cell mates… pelting them with power chords and tunelessness that combined the early morning of a UK street team uprising, Mississippi mud, and Hagar the Horrible.  Then later, giving rise to a “new and improved” model to create the call to arms for east coast extremists ably contented with a body slam and bottle o’ anything to wash it down with.   

So sixteen more reasons to forget all you ever knew about how to play an instrument—it’s high on the hog hedonism featuring the fab foursome of founders Whiskey Rebel and Marla Vee, along with Eric Perfect, a guy called Satan, and their somewhat lavishly presented frontman, simply known as The Cosmic Commander Of Wrestling.  Divided into three segments, “Cheesesteak” begins with degenerate, ends with distasteful, and somewhere in the middle piles high a number of poorly played piss off anthems for the estranged, deranged, and cellar dwelling noize addicts drawn to outcast rock and all things “anti.”  

And if these types of things excite you, you’ll love Rancid Vat!  It’s balls out Punk the way it used to be; a thing too many of the so-called shy away from to sell more records.  So call ‘em stupid, and stand back; and slovenly, and stand even further back, and fists out for two minute long bomb tracks like “Sucker Punch,” “Loser Leave Town,” “Old People,” “Blobs Have More Fun,” “The Dancin’ Outlaw…” feel free to stop me at any time now—in fact I wish you would.  The next to last closing tune’s enough to pinch your nerve, mindful yet of them pulling it off live in a radio station of all things—“The Darkest Souls In Rock & Roll…” hell yeah then!  At the core they’re stinky, sweaty and too damned much fun to ever take seriously and yet this was at the peak of their “musicianship.”  

So I’m only waiting for the next one that covers their first twelve years, and man, what that must’ve been. For now we’ll be content with this sick and twisted GWAR meets, then eats, Turbonegro, style of nose thumbing, nose holding Rock n’ Reek that’s got more balls than you have.