Rocket From the Crypt - Hot Charity/Cut Carefully and Play Loud
Well, this makes two in a row that are maybe sort of hard to find. Hot Charity was released on vinyl alone in 1993. It fits between Circa:Now! and Scream, Dracula, Scream! in chronology and stylistically. The thing that I hear now (15 years later - yikes) is the intensity - these are close to live performances. All the lyrics are about you or the writer being in danger. Cut Carefully… was another hard-to-find vinyl-only release, but… you know those record sleeves with the hole in the middle, so you can read the sticker through the sleeve? Cut Carefully has the record in the sleeve, with a larger-than-the-hole sticker placed over the hole, so that the vinyl is actually attached to the sleeve until you cut it out. Carefully. This was 1999, so I got the files from Napster and never cut mine. And in 2002, both were remastered and re-released on this one CD, so you don’t have to go through that.
They constitute a best-of, really, because the tracks here are as good as any of their other output. I think it’s probably a decent place to start if you’re not a fan already, but you would know that better than I would.
