Monday, December 05, 2005

Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables


The seminal Dead Kennedys album Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables turned 25 this year. A couple of weeks back saw the release of the 25th anniversary edition, remastered with the help of guitarist East Bay Ray. It's packaged in a slipcase cover and features a replica of the 2 sided poster that came with the original. It sounds as inflammatory as ever, and thanks to the digital remastering it's nice and clean and LOUD. It's a seething mix of acerbic ranting courtesy of Jello Biafra, and some crazy surf punk music. It's unrelenting. From the opening salvo of Kill The Poor - raging punk with an insanely catchy chorus as well as lyrics that are so confrontational and anti "The Man" - it goes on to call for lynching the landlord, rails on chemical warfare, and delivers a couple of stone cold punk classics in California Über Alles and Holiday In Cambodia before closing out the album with a unique and glorious take on Viva Las Vegas that has Jello's glorious quiver on full throttle. Great stuff.

No comments: