THE NOMADS
Showdown 2 - The 90s (Sympathy)
Reviewed by Alan Wright

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A sequel of sorts to the first Showdown compilation that focused on the band's '80s output. The first disc collects tunes off of the Sonically Speaking and Powerstrip albums, plus four tunes from the all-Canadian garage-punk covers The Cold Hard Facts Of Life mini-LP, and serves as a pretty good overview of the band's harder-edges sound as they entered the '90s. The real meat for me is disc 2, which collects up various hard-to-find singles only cuts, B-sides, compilation tracks and the like. That means you get their great covers of tunes by bands like The Cult Figures ("I Remember"), Suicide ("Magdalena"), the Damned ("Fan Club"), Jody Reynolds ("Fire Of Love"), The Demics ("The Grey and the Black"), Dead Moon ("In The Graveyard"), The Saints ("Demolition Girl") and the Boys ("TCP"). There's also some really great tracks that were singles-only releases, like their cover of the old Holland-Dozier-Holland soul tune "Love's Gone Bad" - originally performed by one of Motown's only white singers, Chris Clark. Other notables include "Pack Of Lies" and "King of Night Train."

Also included are five songs from the 20th anniversary concert, during which they were joined on stage by folks such as Handsome Dick Manitoba and Ross The Boss (Dictators), Chris Bailey (Saints), Jello Biafra and Wayne Kramer. A bootleg LP came out a while ago featuring almost the entire concert, and I'm a little disappointed they didn't include the great version of "Five Years Ahead Of My Time" with Jello on lead vocals on this, but these five tunes do pack a punch for sure. They rip thru the Dictators' "Minnesota Strip," the Dead Kennedys' "Let's Lynch The Landlord," the Saints' "I'm Stranded" and a crazed version of "Kick Out The Jams" featuring Jello, Wayne Kramer and Nick Vahlberg trading off on vocals, and Wayne Kramer and Ross The Boss on guitars, with the two of them and Hans Ostlund taking solos!! I think I'll be playing this quite a bit.

© 2003 - Alan Wright