Label: Klippan Records; Year: 1999; Format: Vinyl LP
A highly interesting release here by Kriminella Gitarrer from Klippan, a small town in Sweden. These first generation punk rockers were just kids when they managed to release three 7"s between '78 and '79, and all of them don't quite sound alike. The first one was apparently already sought after just two years after its release and was compared to the sounds of the swedish highways during rush hour. Well, I can see where the fanzine writer at the time was coming from, but I must add that the first 7" and the demo tracks on the B-Side of this collection are in parts noisy proto-hardcore, and we're talking '77 and '78 here, impressive for a group of 15 year olds from small town Sweden. It might have been the distance to bigger cities and those scenes that provided them with the ability to really build on their own sound instead of trying to sound like another band. The 2nd and 3rd 7"s, here to be found on the A-side, along the 1st one, are to a degree more melodic, musically more developed, and pop oriented, but in my opinion those are the best tracks the band has ever recorded as they are true '77 punk smashers. Apparently the band only ever played fewer than ten gigs, and this release looks like a bootleg even though it has an insert with all the info on the band and the history. While the original 7"s are impossibly hard to find and expensive, even this LP is not easy to get, and certainly not cheap. In the early 2000s a compilation CD with even more tracks surfaced, but the same problem prevails as it is hard to get a copy. A label specializing in reissuing hard to find international punk should really look into doing a proper release of this material as there are some exceptionally good songs Kriminella Gitarrer managed to crank out.
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