REDD KROSS - Neurotica 2LP (colour vinyl)

Double vinyl 35th anniversary edition—the album on translucent turquoise, the demos on translucent orange—arrives in a slick gatefold jacket.

Remastered by JJ Golden and paired with 12 unreleased demos rediscovered in the archive of original A+R guy Geoffrey Weiss.

Neurotica could be viewed as a This Is Your Life-esque document of what brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald had been working toward creatively since starting Redd Kross in their Hawthorne, CA living room circa 1978. The songs quake with punk rock fury. And how could they possibly have shaken off the untamed energy of their early Red Cross years which laid a foundation for Southern California hardcore punk and DIY culture alongside bands like Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Descendants?

But fury is only part of their formula. To find the other parts, travel back to the ‘70s, when the McDonald boys lived for nothing but Saturday morning cartoons, sugary cereal, bubblegum pop singles, Beach Boys LPs, Partridge Family TV specials and the arena rock guitars of KISS and Cheap Trick.

Whereas most self-respecting punk rockers would have sneered at ‘60s/‘70s radio and pop culture schmaltz (even if they secretly liked it), that was all a tremendous part of the Redd Kross DNA. And the McDonalds wore those influences on their dayglo sleeves.

They decontextualized the macho, sometimes saccharine, sound of classic rock, celebrating its bombast without falling into its pretentious pitfalls. They played what sounded good to them. If along the way they could convince you that those David Cassidy AM radio singles were actually great and subversive in their own way, that was just an added bonus.