On its original 1986 release (one of the last LPs released on Stiff Records as the pioneering punk era label was shutting its doors),
King Kurt's second album was officially untitled and most often referred to as "
King Kurt's second album." To the band and its fervent fans, however, the album was always known as Big Cock, and the CD reissues restored that name (referring, of course, to the noble rooster towering majestically over the band on the album's cover) to its proper place. Keeping the crazed psychobilly of the band's early singles front and center but allowing different influences to creep into their sound, Big Cock is a more varied listen than 1984's Ooh Wallah Wallah: witness their respectful take on
Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown" and the oddball jump blues of the first single "Billy." As one might expect from a British band for whom the term means something entirely different than the popular dance from the early-'60s North Carolina beach music scene, "Do the Shag" is a lascivious piece of grinding R&B, as is the downright funky "Momma Kurt" and the growling sax and big-band drums of the instrumental "The Bowland Fen Decoy" sounds pleasantly like one of
Madness' mid-career album tracks. These variations on the band's previously established wild-eyed rockabilly and mildly scatological, alcohol-fueled lyrics make Big Cock a more consistently entertaining, less tiresome listen than their debut overall, although Pat Collier's booming, echoey production is a bit more beholden to the sound of 1986 than
Dave Edmunds' drier work on the debut. Many of the CD reissues add several bonus tracks, including the non-LP single "Slammers" and its B-sides. ~ Stewart Mason