Reviews: "Murder by Guitar" / "Frustration"

No Exit #2

CRIME - Murder by guitar/Frustration (CRIME Music).  Murder by guitar starts at a slow threatening pulse beat and turns stronger and stronger like a jet taking off, it's like the Velvets go 80's, almost over the edge and suddenly with a scream is turned into pure rock n roll a la 50's-80's.  FRUSTRATION, frustration is in the Damned vein but goes beyond, fast original one of the first 45's in a while that really twists you, the core of the song is high nervous energy just like the title.  Definately buy it....

Ripped and Torn (British fanzine) - SINGLE OF THE YEAR

Murder by guitar/Frustration (Crime label, import).  A hot one from San Francisco, this single is so powerful I'm surprised the customs men let it in the country.  They've got laws against this sort of thing, but it's here, and how.

Stick it in the turntable and a slow, pounding riff marches relentlessly outta this, and baby it don't take no prisoners.  Those of you lucky enoughto have seen the Ants will recognise it as nearly identical to the riff the band play at the start of the set before Adam comes on, it's the beginning of "Plastic Surgery".  The same doomy, irresistably commanding beat, a forewarner of whats about to rear it demented head any minute now.  If anything is a musical definition of hopeless frustration and severe depression it could well be this, and might even drive an unstable mind completely over the edge.  Heavy stuff huh?
The beat goes on with Johnny Strikes guitar alternately helping and hindering by scratching across his fretboard, playing mad solos and joining in the beat almost as suddenly, it's chaos, but rehearsed.  A scream of feedback is answered by a human (humanoid?) scream and the song speeds up through a mist of distortion into the "fast bit".  If you remember their first single, the classic "Hot wire my heart" and its chaotic splendour, well it's the same sort of thing here only more guitars this time.  The lyrics are only there to off-set the guitar, mainly being random "Murder by guitar", "it looks like murder", "Death by noise", and "What do you feel" shouts by vocalist Frankie Fix who's also weilding a guitar, but the record is a showcase for Johnny Strike and his guitar, on a gutter level.

Y'know, I reckon if there was ever such a thing as good heavy metal then it wouldn't sound a million notes away from this.  I can't stand heavy metal but hell I just love this single.  And I never thought I'd say that about a mainly instrumental, guitar-hero type song.  Stuff as good as this restores my faith in punk/life, and do I need it now!!

Slash

CRIME - Frustration/Murder by Guitar (CRIME Music).  Both are recorded better than the first record, and the improvement isn't always to their advantage.  Thinhs are more mechanical, not as much of that shock wave drone.  All the same, "Frustration" is still a dynamo, enveloping everything in adrenal whirlpools of black noise.  Vocals are spat out in nervous nightmare shouts.  You can see Frankie Fix's porous, corpse mouth gasping this stuff in palsied overamplification.  "Murder by Guitar" does slow builds, sonic tinkertoys of a particularly slimy underworld.  Johnny Strike screams while on the run from a self-made prison of no escape.  The modern sleeve deserves mention, too, so feverishly lurid with their bad dream image. (Bog Clone)

Musicians News (March 1978)

CRIME - "Frustration"/"Murder by Guitar".  A much improved single by CRIME their second time around.  Gutsy and gutcrunching chillers on both sides.  I still hate their 'punkier than thou' attitude, as phoney today as it was when the Dave Clarke 5 were riding the hog.  The DC5, however, made some great songs despite their (self-) hype.  CRIME has yet to encompass and surpass their own inflated image.  Excellent production by Novak.  With PS.  (CRIME Fan Club, 537 Jones St, Suite 9062, San Francisco, CA 94102.  Overpriced at $2.50).

SOUNDS (November 5th 1977)

CRIME: Murder by Guitar (CRIME).  God they have improved!  This'd be a contender for single of the week if it wasn't available on import only.  Wrenching, slow, painful intro segues into a classic ever faster rifferama...ends on "I'm gonna drive my guitar straight through your heart..."

BAM Magazine (January 1978)

 "Frustration"/"Murder by Guitar" (CRIME Music) CRIME.  If punk rock is supposed to de-emphasize guitar hegemony, nobody has bothered to tell CRIME - not that they'd listen anyway.  As a band, CRIME doesn't take it's cues from anybody - at least, from no source identifiable through their music or bizarre image.  Their approach to music might be best described as the raw barrage sound - a self-conciously outrageous assault on the aural senses.  Their second 45 has met with widely mixed reactions.  A KSAN d.j. who inadvertantly put it on a turntable called it "the worst record in the world."  The influential English punk fanzine, Ripped and Torn, recently named it 1977 Single of the Year.

"Frustration" is a raucous and nasty autobiographical song about maintaining sneering defiance in the light of seemingly insurmountable difficulties.  "Murder by Guitar" is less idea-laden.  It emphasizes a not unpleasant guitar build-up which culminates in a vicious instrumental frontal attack.  The vocals are too integral to be superfluous, but the lyrics themselves aren't exactly crucial.  If you have the stamina, this is a good record - the new wave at it's most uncompromising.