So! The Cult of Toe-Rag strikes Japan. Flying halfway across the world to record in a shed might seem like a silly idea but The Privates clearly know what they're doing and this turns out to be an inspired move for them. The recording may be rough (although nowhere near as kitchen-sink as the recently reviewed Cribs album) but it packs a punch that many of their Japanese garage contemporaries (The Neatbeats, The Pebbles etc...) sometimes lack on wax.

"Fiendish Shallow Brained Rubbish x 14" proclaims the jacket proudly. It opens with the fiendish and shallow-brained but also fiercely driving "Boogie Go Go", all menacing hooks and ridiculous English lyrics. They then clobber their way through an array of similarly catchy, rug-cutting, no-brainer songs with titles like "Big Mouth Shut!", "Cadillac Stomp" and "Tommy Gun Shuffle" in a hard-drinking, hard-swearing, pub-rocking manner that's less The Beatles and more Dr. Feelgood (trust me, it's a good thing in this case).

Like The Neatbeats, it would be altogether too easy to ignore the obvious love and honesty that has gone into the creation of this music and dismiss it as pointless retro costume-play. However, like toe-rag predecessors The White Stripes, they have a manifesto of sorts. While not quite reaching the eloquence of Jack White's heartfelt lament on the death of the sweetheart, The Privates' proclamations ("turn off the fuckin' television covered with the excrement right now" and "you are being completely deceived and made to do masturbation in a dumping ground") at least burn with a similar media-trashing intent.

They close with the sharp, Kinks-like mod anthem "Psycho Society", whose repeated cry of "Frustration! Frustration!" is surely destined to be echoed by kids in stupid clothes, punching the air at live venues across the country from this day forth. It's a fitting closer to the rave-up that precedes it. Japanese rock and roll is finding its balls. -Ian Martin, May.09.04

Crawdaddy Stomp - UK Toe-Rag Sessions