I’m tired today after a night with little sleep, but there is no level of fatigue that can’t be cured in part with the energy of this next band.
Disc 1662 is…Coup De Grace
Artist: The Plasmatics
Year of Release: 2000
What’s up with the Cover? Any good Plasmatics cover will feature a couple of key details. An industrial art installation of some kind, and Wendy O. Williams looking completely trashed. This is a good Plasmatics record.
How I Came To Know It: I have been a Wendy O. Williams fan dating back to her 1984 album “W.O.W.” Back then I knew she had been in a band called the Plasmatics, and that they were “hard core” but never followed up.
Then about a year or two ago I came across a bunch of Plasmatics album in the metal section of my local record store while I was looking for something else. Intrigued, I bought one to see if I’d like it. I did like it, and I promptly went back and bought two more. “Coup De Grace” was one of those.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Plasmatics albums. I had four, until I realized that one of them was a compilation record and gave it away. Of the three that I have, I’m going to say “Coup de Grace” is…#1. Maybe the other two will slip ahead when I review them, but I gotta give this record its due right now.
Rating: 4 stars
When I was young the punks and the metalheads derisively looked down at their noses at each other. This was ridiculous given how close cousins they were musically – just a bit of melody and production separated them. If either group gave a listen to the Plasmatics “Coup de Grace”, they would have quickly seen there was a natural bridge between the two styles so natural as to be almost seamless. Well, the bridge would be made of repurposes twisted bits of metal girder, but seamless all the same.
Sadly you couldn’t listen to “Coup de Grace” back when I was a kid, because it hadn’t been released yet. They could have listened to 1982’s “Coup d’etat” though, and “Coup de Grace” is just the demo album of “Coup d’etat”, a bit rawer, but with the same tracks. I don’t own “Coup d’etat” but listening to the demos record makes me want to.
The earlier Plasmatics albums are more pure punk, but on “Coup de Grace” the Plasmatics embrace metal as well. Williams next turn would be to go full into the metal/punk fusion world with her solo record, “W.O.W.”. I love this crossover space, occupied by many of my longest-loved bands, including Girlschool, Motorhead and L7.
Those bands drop a fair bit of anger and aggression into their creations, but no one mainlines pure fury like Wendy O. Williams. Every line is an invitation to a fight, and every scream a wail of frustration at the pedestrian world she sees all around her. Williams isn’t one of rock’s great vocalists, but she is one of its great voices nonetheless. She snarls and spits and sneers her way through every song.
All that nasty has the potential to get tiresome on repeat listens, but it never happened to me. I was eager for the restart of the CD every single time. I’d like to apologize to my fellow drivers for playing this too loud with the top down, but if the ghost of Williams heard me apologizing for playing it loud she’d come back from the dead to kick me in the balls. So in defence of the family jewels, I must remain unrepentant.
Maybe no song captures the pure visceral quality of this record like the opening track, “Put Your Love in Me” the topic of which is about as mysterious as the title suggests. Wendy has a request, and it ain’t no metaphor.
“Rock ‘N’ Roll” is almost ACDC like in its anthem four-four thump. She settles the song down a bit and lets the guitar drone a bit, but don’t be fooled. That’s just so you can catch your breath for the fist pumping and jumping up and down that the chorus will demand of you. “Lightning Breaks” feels like the punk cousin to Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.” The whole record is a celebration of loud.
If you’re looking for reflections of a healthy lifestyle, don’t look for it on this record. This album is pure animalistic rage, and the expressions of awareness when they appear are mostly filled with lust or anger. It is intoxicating, but after-school special material, it is not. Be warned.
I prefer a little melody in my hard music, and “Coup de Grace” is the most melodic of the Plasmatics releases that I know. It is a bit garage-y in places (apparently this raw aspect is a result of these being the demos) and this usually irks me and makes me want to take the masters back to the studio. In this case it is just what the doctor ordered.
Most of all, this record is an anthem for raising your fist and yelling. If you’ve had a bad day, this stuff will be sure to energize, both musically and lyrically. It will demand you rise up and stand tall, and call damnation upon the vicissitudes of fate. This is never better expressed than on “Path of Glory” where Williams sings:
“Mighty voices up on
high
Purge the darkness with your cry
Smash the stillness of the air
End stagnation, end despair”
Sadly, Williams herself was unable to end despair, and tragically took her own life in 1998. “Coup de Grace” was released posthumously two years later. It is a worthy legacy to the no-prisoners approach she brought to her art.
Best tracks: Put Your Love in Me, Rock ‘N’ Roll, Just Like on TV, Lightning Breaks, Country Fairs
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