Teenage Depression

Amazon.com

Over the course of the long, hot summer of 1976, it seemed that Eddie & the Hot Rods were embarking on a one-way trip to superstardom. Considered to be a younger and more exuberant version of gritty, R&B pub-rockers Dr. Feelgood, they were smashing attendance records during a prolonged residency at London’s Marquee Club. Yet, to echo their debut single, there was already a good deal of “Writing on the Wall” for the Rods, as their Marquee support band, the Sex Pistols, were about to consign them to the cultural dumper. This debut collection, however, catches the quartet on the crest of an upwardly mobile wave where everything still seemed possible, and their edgy, blazing energy is both tangible and infectious. From “Get Across to You” to “On the Run,” Teenage Depression remains a hot-and-sweaty, rough-and-ready pub-rock classic. –Ian Fortnam