Imperial Dogs Make 'Noise For Heroes'

Here's still another review of the Imperial Dogs' Unchained Maladies: Live! 1974-75 -- written by Steve Gardner for his fanzine-turned-webzine Noise For Heroes -- from when the LP was first released on Australian indie Dog Meat Records back in 1989:

"If you've already read the Dog Meat records feature [Noise For Heroes #19], you'll have gotten some of the background on this record ... recorded on cassette (4 songs of a live show and the others at practices in a garage), marginal sound quality, not marginal energy and spirit ...

"Dave Laing thinks of this in the same vein as the Survivors' LP that he also was responsible for releasing. But there's a big difference to me, and that's while the Survivors did covers of cool songs that they pumped up the way they thought they should be played, the Imperial Dogs record is mostly their own material and a lot of it is really good, too. It's easier to forgive bootleg sound quality when it is coming with music that you can't get any other way.

"One of the fun things about listening to this is the way songs sound like they fit in with some of today's ideas about what should be in music, but there are other influences in there that just feel totally alien, like '13 Sons Of Satan,' which sounds like an early Deep Purple song. I can't say this is essential, since the Dogs were heard by few and influenced only a handful, but it's an interesting document and I'm glad that it's been made available."

And ... once again, the sound quality on the Imperial Dogs' DVD is far superior to the abovementioned LP -- and has the benefit of you-are-there visuals -- and the DVD features five original songs that don't appear on the LP, but not "13 Sons Of Satan" ('cause we hadn't written it yet).