This album came out two decades ago. Here’s what I had to say about it back then (with some minor editing):
At heart, much first-wave punk rock was really pop music. Loud, fast, angry pop music, perhaps, but pop nonetheless. Go back and listen to The Sex Pistols’, The Dickies’ or The Ramones’ first discs if you don’t believe me. New York’s Lower East Side Stitches have obviously spent plenty of time spinning those bands and soaking up their sounds and styles.
On Lower East Side, their third album, they’ve learned their lessons well. These 14 feedback-fuelled streetcorner anthems crackle and reverberate with traces of punk rock’s finest founding fathers: The young, loud and snotty attitude of The Dead Boys, the power-pogo drums of The Ramones, the sugar-pop backup vocals of The Dickies, the Chuck Berry-on-speed guitar of Johnny Thunders. How authentic are they? Well, they played the ’70s punk band in Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam. And judging by their press shots, I bet they didn’t even have to change their clothes — never mind their sound.
