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Anyone familiar with The Fucking Champs will find the concept of a greatest hits compilation rather hard to grasp. After all, it's not like the San Francisco trio ever had any hits. To those completely unfamiliar with them though, this record will make you wonder exactly how the band never scored a one-off, as this is music dangerously akin to The Darkness, and I don't need to tell you who they are, or how huge they've become. Alright, so for the most part The Fucking Champs offer only instrumentals, but they stress the 'mental' part with aplomb, coming across like every hair-metal group ever stripped down and blended into a singular supreme brew. Twenty different riffs in a single three-minute song? Hell, yeah! But what are these hits, exactly? Well, Police Nauts sounds like the cheesy intro music to some obscure Japanese anime, probably featuring cat-like officers of the law zipping around some futuristic city on hover-bikes; Crummy Lovers Die is what the aforementioned Darkness boys have dreams about â?? pure, unadulterated metal pomp; and Air on a G String is, well, exactly what you'd expect it to be, only played by Bill and Ted's Wyld Stallyns. This record is going to influence some young, stupid filmmaker into doing a Spinal Tap sequel, I can see it now. Please, please don't, but do air guitar in front of the mirror in your pants to this. It's a compromise that we'll appreciate a whole lot more.

Mike Diver
CWAS #13 - Autumn 2003

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