REO Speedealer: REO Speedealer

Ugly, Nugent-inspired noise-metal is almost trendy these days—look at Nashville Pussy, which just signed to a major label—but few bands are as unrepentantly fast or brutal as REO Speedealer, whose self-titled debut stuffs 15 blaringly aggressive songs into 19 minutes and 39 seconds. How By dispensing with fluffy niceties like repeated choruses, solos, or melodies. Action Swingers is a fair reference point, as is Slayer when it's going for speed over technically precise instrumental displays, but REO Speedealer is considerably more vulgar, never straying far from such well-worn topics as drugs ("Cocaine Dave"), sex ("Pussy," "Teenage"), and trucks and sex ("Double Clutchin' Finger Fuckin'"). The album is so relentlessly assaultive that it gets monotonous after a while, and, like Nashville Pussy, REO Speedealer can't come close to replicating its hairy, shirtless, violent live attack. But it's hard to deny that the band flat-out rocks, and wastes precious little time doing so. (Royalty, 176 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016)