From 1987,
the Meteors' follow-up to their most successful album yet, Sewertime Blues, was widely expected to simply serve up more of the same -- why change a winning formula, after all? Instead, they skewed off to deliver what remains their most diverse, and almost contrarily, their most enjoyable album, a 12-song dynamo that kicks off with an inspired re-invention of
the Stranglers' "Go Buddy Go" and never looked back. Swinging from the blues-drenched menace of "Midnight People" to the sheer mania of "Crack Me Up," swerving violently into the slapstick title track and then driving the whole show into a wall with "Psycho Kat," Don't Touch the Bang Bang Fruit is
the Meteors at their absolute peak, rendered even more impressive for this reissue by the inclusion of 12" mixes of the singles ("Go Buddy Go" was joined on the racks by the "Bang Bang Fruit" itself), and a pair of manic B-sides. And the brilliance doesn't let up for a moment. ~ Dave Thompson