Kicked Out of Hell

Four years on from In Sickness & In Health, and Demented Are Go were still blazing with a fury that could only leave their contemporaries speechless with envy; four years on, too, and the band was taking serious liberties with the traditional ingredients of psychobilly, intent on proving instead that there was a lot more to the genre than just another night in with the Cramps. And so the opening "Satan's Rejects" rides the kind of vibe that the Lords of the New Church might have played with before kicking into a widescreen, wide scream of sound that refuses to sit still for a moment. It is probably over-ambitious to follow the 2007 reissue's liner notes in proclaiming Kicked Out of Hell as one of the most influential rockabilly albums since Demented's debut (which genuinely did kick the movement into a whole new ballpark). Too often, songs drag even while the ideas try to pull them forward, and the lyrics are a lot weaker, too. But the insistence that psychobilly was capable of divorcing itself from rockabilly was a brave step regardless, and it would help keep the movement alive into the next decade. ~ Dave Thompson