Peter and the Test Tube Babies

• Peter and the Test Tube Babies [Profile, 1987] B+
• The Shit Factory [Triple X, 1990] B+

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Peter and the Test Tube Babies [Profile, 1987]
In this time of micromargins and cults subdividing like paramecia, we gravitate toward bands that hark to whatever obscure titans we picked up on when obscurism was a harmless sideline. For me it was the Vibrators, the wildest and tightest of Britain's trad rockers in punk disguise, and I bet these guys were there. Despite the chiming expansiveness of the hooks and song lengths, they're the same nasty group, driven to drink by their microcultish prospects. B+

The Shit Factory [Triple X, 1990]
Maybe this delicious joke is wasted on the U.S.A., where we endure the middle-class schlock of Diane Warren rather than the lowbrow banality of the Stock/Aitken/Waterman these latter-day Britpunks vomit back so relentlessly. But the Rick Astley cover will connect--great chords never die, roit? And as an added attraction, "Venus" becomes "Penis." I think. B+