Understand?

AMG Review of Understand?

Mike DaRonco
All Music Guide

Naked Raygun always came across as the band who would best represent a soundtrack for any of the Mad Max films, maybe even Blade Runner. Not that they have a grim dystopian tone to go along along with Jeff Pezzati's end-of-the-world rants -- on the contrary, that doesn't even come close to Naked Raygun's sound. It's just that they have more of a futuristic blight to their sound without crossing into the realm of cheesy science fiction. With Understand?, Naked Raygun have graduated to more of a mature verse-chorus-verse structure and lack the repetition of this traditional manner. And as an added bonus, there are less whoa-whoa's and more of Pezzati's announcer-like vocals that blare out real lyrics. [Understand? was reissued in 1999.]