| Dragstrip Riot | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | the Flesh Eaters |
| Cover: | Dragstrip Riot (album).jpg |
| Released: | 1991 |
| Genre: | Punk rock |
| Label: | SST[1] |
| Producer: | Chris D. |
| Prev Title: | Prehistoric Fits Vol. 2 |
| Prev Year: | 1990 |
| Next Title: | Sex Diary of Mr. Vampire |
| Next Year: | 1992 |
Dragstrip Riot is an album by the American band the Flesh Eaters, released in 1991.[2] [3] It was their first studio album since 1983's A Hard Road to Follow. They supported the album with a North American tour.[4]
Lyrics to "Dragstrip Riot" appear in Bruce Harris Craven's novel Fast Sofa, published in 1993. The Flesh Eaters recorded a new song to promote the book, which was included with Fast Sofa as a flexi-disc.[5] "The Youngest Profession" was rerecorded for 2018's I Used to Be Pretty.[6]
The album was made with a new lineup of the band, with Chris D. the only longtime member. It contains covers of the Flamin' Groovies' "Slow Death" and Mott the Hoople's "Moon Upstairs".[7] The title track stretches to almost 10 minutes.[8]
Trouser Press concluded that the new band "proves potent enough to keep pace without clinging to their leader’s tornado-swept coattails, whether the context is quietly malicious delta blues ('The Youngest Profession'), Alice Cooper-via-Jim Thompson power-metal ('Sugarhead and Panther Breath') or stripped-down docudrama (the ten-minute title track), not to mention a handful of territory-defining covers."[9] The Los Angeles Times called the new Flesh Eaters "a more tempered band with a blues and garage-rock sound that sometimes echoes such punk precursors as the Stooges, Television and the Patti Smith Group... Formerly a ranter and raver, Chris D. now can sing when he wants to."[7]
The Arizona Daily Star wrote that "lead screamer Chris D. has reassembled his semi-legendary L.A. punk band, rediscovered the blues and now occasionally forgoes his trademark from-the-crypt wail to actually sing his lyrics, a combination of beat poetry, pulp fiction and B-movie themes."[10] CMJ New Music Report thought that guitarist Wayne James's "every move is a new extension of L.A.M.F./Link Wray squint-eyed grace; his guitar/co-writing skills are within the bounds of both old Flesh Eaters style and stereotype bad-ass rocker blare."[11]
AllMusic determined: "Overlong, but after over a decade they're in great shape." The Encyclopedia of Popular Music thought that the album "saw the band crashing out riotous swamp rock of a virulent, Cramps-type character."