Do It Dog Style

Slaughter & the Dogs' name may not ring recognition bells among today's listeners, but 1977 punk acolytes will definitely welcome this reissue. Vocalist Wayne Barrett and guitarist Mick Rossi named their band after the two albums they treasured most: David Bowie's Diamond Dogs, and Mick Ronson's Slaughter on 10th Avenue. Both choices summarize this album's light-shade approach. The opening salvo of "Where Have All the Boot Boys Gone?" sounds as hair-raising as ever and rightly remains the band's best-known song, having been credited with inspiring the Oi! punk movement. At heart, though, the Dogs revealed themselves as waggish punk-poppers on "Quick Joey Small" celebration of criminal bravado, and "You're a Bore," whose outro soars into impossibly pure ear candy. The band proves agreeably diverse on the slower, janglier "Since You Went Away," and a remake of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man," which crackles with an impatience befitting its addiction-by-attrition theme. Still other tracks, such as "Victims of the Vampire," display a goonish sensibility better suited to a Ramones album. So does the bonus track "Johnny T," whose 90 seconds of power-pub boogie salute the late, combustive New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders. For all its promise, however, the band ended up among punk's here-and-gone stories, disbanding by the time of Dog Style's July 1978 release (then reuniting as Slaughter in 1980.) A more consistent songwriting approach might have lengthened the Dogs' run, though their lack of airs ensured a winning team for a time. Any band cited by the disparate likes of New Order, the Stone Roses and Smiths frontman Morrissey surely deserves another look. ~ Ralph Heibutzki