The Damned - Not Like Everybody Else
★★★
EARMUSIC
When drummer Rat Scabies was welcomed back permanently to The Damned in 2024, worshippers of the incendiary and virtuoso Sensible/Vanian/Gray/Scabies aggregate that cut Machine Gun Etiquette, The Black Album and Strawberries shed tears of joy. But would they record together again? During a US trek last summer, a plan was hastily hatched to salute founder member Brian James, who died in April 2025, with an album of 10 of the guitarist’s favourite songs. That the redux Damned are on thunderous form is evident from gnarly, Farfisa-speckled renditions of the familiar – Ghost In My House, Summer In The City, See Emily Play (sung by the Captain), Gimme Danger – and the intriguing, namely The Lollipop Shoppe’s You Must Be A Witch. The covers format doesn’t facilitate too much untamed Scabies (sadly), but Brian himself poignantly appears on The Last Time, recorded at his penultimate reunion gig in October 2022.
Not Like Everybody Else is out January 23 via Earmusic.
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Tracklisting:
1. Ghost In My House
2. Summer In The City
3. Making Time
4. Gimme Danger
5. See Emily Play
6. I’m Not Like Everybody Else
7. Heart Full Of Soul
8. You Must Be A Witch
9. When I Was Young
10. The Last Time
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