We've been waiting forever for this to happen! The first four Flipper albums have finally been reissued, and each one of these albums is a crucial chapter of this seminal San Francisco band. EVen if you've never heard Flipper, I bet that you've at least heard the name; these freaks have had an enormous influence on so much of the heavy, fucked-up punk and metal that we love over the past three decades. Flipper formed in 1979 in the midst of the burgeoning hardcore scene, but even though the band was eventually embraced by a cult following in hardcore, these mutants had little in common with the louder/faster aesthetic of punk as it headed into the 1980s. They were much more closely aligned with that weirdo San Francisco art punk scene of the late 70s that gave us other unclassifiable bands like Chrome and The Residents, but Flipper were heavier than everyone. Playing slow, bludgeoning atonal riffs and plodding super-heavy rhythms, Flipper were slower than anyone else in punk at the time, and their sheer heaviness and the nihilistic aura that surrounded the band and their music is what drew in the hardcore punks. In the decades that followed, Flipper turned into one of the most influential bands of the American underground, and you can trace their influence through the sloppy, misanthropic sludge rock of 80's bands like Drunks With Guns, Blight and Kilslug to the success of Nirvana and the Melvins, both citing Flipper as being one of their biggest influences. Especially the Melvins. Out of all of the bands that I listen to, the Melvins might be Flipper's most devout disciples (next to Rick Rubin's mid-80s band Hose); over the course of their career, the Melvins have covered tons of Flipper songs and have cited Flipper as one of their biggest influences since the beginning, and its pretty obvious when you listen to the crushing, plodding drumming and sludgy punk riffs on any of the Melvins's albums. And more recently, there has been a whole movement of fucked up noise/punk bands that are worshipping at the altar of Flipper, from Pissed Jeans to Brainbombs to Clockcleaner, they've all got that Flipper DNA coursing through their veins. Of course, nobody has ever surpassed the mighty, mysterious brain-damaged heaviness of Flipper themselves, and these new reissues are crucial for anyone who wants to hear the band at the height of their demented powers.

1984's Gone Fishin was the second and last studio album from the original Flipper lineup, and it featured a more polished recording and tighter performance from the band. Polished? Tighter? That sounds antithetic to what made their first album Generic Flipper such a blast of stumbling genius, but their followup is still a powerhouse of bad vibes and sludgy, slurred art-punk demolition. Might be a heavier album than Generic, actually. The riffs are meatier, less out-of-tune and the bass lines are thick, lumbering low end rumblings laid over pounding drums that sometimes take on a motorik pulse. Plus there's loads of awesome sax playing, and some piano appears too, and even a xylophone on the opening song "The Light The Sound". Will Shatter's singing was still sloppy as fuck though, and the heavy echo that is thrown over his nihilistic howling makes these songs sound even more acid-fried and tweaked. Some of my favorite Flipper songs are on this album - the sinister dirge "Sacrifice" that the Melvins ended up covering on Lysol, the haunting anthem "Survivors Of The Plague", and the awesome sax-splat skronk of "First The Heart". Crucial! The packaging for this reissue reproduces the original LP artwork, scaled down for CD size obviously, with the cut-out paper model of the Flipper tour van, band equipment and band members all included. It's tempting to disassemble the packaging into a Flipper playset, but it'd probably be a better move to make a copy of the booklet instead. The booklet also includes lots of photos and liner notes from Flipper disciple Buzz Osborne from the Melvins. Recommended!