AMG Review of Rattus Norvegicus [Bonus Tracks]

Dave Thompson
All Music Guide

The first and finest of the band's many albums, Rattus Norvegicus is also the closest the Stranglers came to defining how they were lumped into the punk movement -- even if it is still difficult to tell why. Brutal, bleak, and bellicose, the Stranglers ranged in temperament between the bully boys hiding in the alley round the corner and a bad-tempered uncle who invites himself over for dinner, then spends the day complaining about the price of the bus fare. Rattus is as split between these extremes as anything the Stranglers ever did but, even at its most pointlessly offensive (and between them, "Ugly" and "Peaches" conspire to upset almost everyone who reads the lyrics), the album disports itself with both a musical and a lyrical conviction, which means you can't take the insults too seriously. Or, if you do, you're as much of a problem today as the whiners who didn't get the joke back then. Remastered sound means, among other joys, that the manifold sonic niceties that highlight the landmark "Down in the Sewer" come across with brand new clarity -- catch it on headphones and you can feel the rat breath on the back of your neck. And three bonus tracks wrap the single offered free with early pressings of the original vinyl together with "Go Buddy Go," the manic pub-punkhead's mindless madness that surfaced on the B-side of the U.K. "Peaches" 45 to give nervous DJs something harmless to play in its stead. It is, quite possibly, the most deliberately stupid song the Stranglers ever recorded and, as such, should be cherished in the spirit it was intended -- in other words, crank it up. In other words, BOOGIE!