Gas Huffer don't change one darn thing on its second album -- and that's perfectly fine. In fact, it's great! Integrity, Technology & Service is again produced by Jack Endino, the emphasis once more on crazy, entertaining, classic, punky raunch and roll moving at 200 mph. One of the band's all time great songs is here, "Do the Brutus." Their own version of a hot new dance trend starts with a brisk, killer bassline from Don Blackstone and then makes it from there -- as Wright chants, "throw back your head like you're gonna sneeze!/Do the Brutus, it's quite a hootus!" It looks like Wright himself is pulling off that move on the inside photo, for that matter. As on other releases, many song titles convey the atmosphere here better than other words could: "Overworked Folk Hero Guy," "Remove the Shoe," "Sandfleas," "Where Wolfmen Lurk." Wright, as ever, is a perfect frontman for the whole shebang, with plenty of the same immediate rough charisma as his fellow appreciator of hot grooves and sideburns,
John Reis of
Rocket From the Crypt. Price smokes down all around him with both his economic solos and instantly memorable riffs, while Blackstone and Newton's rhythm section burns rubber several times over. Among the many pure delights are "The Piano Movers," a wry tale of working grunts and a day of disasters on the job, and "Bomb Squad," a similar tale of a slightly more dangerous line of employment with a wonderful "hit the deck, she's going to blow!" backing shout. The "I.T.S. Credo" sums up the appeal of the whole album, as Wright sings on top of another fast-paced garage jump-up, "it's the credo we abide by every single day." Major points as well for the gas station-inspired uniforms on the back cover, years before that became an overdone trend used by unappealing trendhoppers. ~ Ned Raggett