Nearly 20 years into their career, with a dwindling audience and plenty of dogged persistence, the Fleshtones have made their best album. More Than Skin...

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Nearly 20 years into their career, with a dwindling audience and plenty of dogged persistence, the Fleshtones have made their best album. More Than Skin Deep is where their '60s-obsessed, three-chord garage rock gets raised to something like high art, thanks to a punchy and pointed collection of songs -- nearly all originals, only one longer than three minutes. On the anthemic "God Damn It," they look their career straight in the eye: "Hippies smoking pot/Our management sucks/We gotta make some money/God damn it!" Rock anthems don't get more honest than that.
Largely dispensing with the horns and sing-along soul choruses they've used in the past, the Fleshtones stick to a stripped-down guitar-and-organ-driven sound. But hyperactive singer Peter Zaremba calms down enough to bring a bit of sensitivity to the finale, "Better Days," a resonant song of hope and friendship. Two minutes of sensitivity on a 35-minute album is just about right.

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The Fleshtones are a true rock and roll outfit and their sound has been as varied over the years as the rectal excretions of a sick dog. This their latest...

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The Fleshtones are a true rock and roll outfit and their sound has been as varied over the years as the rectal excretions of a sick dog. This their latest release has a very strong tendency towards the sounds of the Rolling Stones meets the Cramps and all those fluffy 70s New Wave bands in a love sick suicide attack. Plenty of gutsy full on sounds including fine harmonica and sax provide cool numbers like God Damn It, I'm Not A Sissy, and I Wanna Feel Something Now. Top stuff.

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