Electric Eel Shock

Forget Hooked on Phonics; Japanese rock trio Electric Eel Shock claims to have learned English by listening to Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. Song titles like "I Love Fish but Fish Hate Me" and "Don't Say Fuck," both from the group's recent Beat Me, suggest that the school of rock won't change language arts textbooks anytime soon, but that's OK. The decade-old trio of Aki Morimto, Kazuto Maekawa and often-naked drummer Tomoharu Ito are a garage-metal firestorm--a refreshingly loud, irreverent tribute to the power of simple riffs and dim-witted lyrics. Happily partaking in the lighter, cheesier side of metal, Electric Eel Shock recalls '80s grunge stalwarts Mudhoney, only with a sincerely naïve admiration of all things Ozzy.