The Nomads' "Solna - Loaded Deluxe Edition"

I reviewed this album when it was released in Sweden last year, but now Ron Sanchez's Montana-based Career Records has released an American version, which omits two songs from the original but adds three new ones in their place. While the concept of domestic vs. import might seem academic in this internet age (unless you're a Yank buying records from Australia or Japan), this new edition is a worthwhile purchase if you don't already have the album, or are a completist. And if you've never heard the Nomads...well, lemme tell ya.

The Nomads exemplify everything I love about non-hyphenated rockaroll. While operating at a less exalted level than, say, the Rolling Stones or the Stooges, these guys have kept the faith for over 30 years now, recording and touring as their obligations to families and straight jobs would allow, slogging around the rock dumps where you don't need a Jumbotron to see the people on stage sweat, with the added bonus of being able to feel the air from speaker cones and kick drum heads moving your clothes around.

At a time when the rock audience was fragmenting into hardcore, metal, and, um, "college rock" factions, the Nomads burst out of the Stockholm suburb from which this album takes its name as an "underground jukebox" for a generation of fans to whom Lux Interior, Johnny Thunders, and Lemmy signified what Chuck 'n' Bo had to their older brethren 'n' sistren. In the '90s, the band became a songwriting vehicle for bassist Bjorne Froberg, a scribe who worked the same patch of turf as the Dictators' Andy Shernoff, equally informed by garage, punk, and pop aesthetics.

The songs on Solna cover the Nomads' entahr spectrum, from fuzz-drenched garage rock pounders to Blue Oyster Cult-influenced mysterioso to Sire-era Flamin' Groovies power pop. From the Swedish CD, you lose the Motown-esque "Trying Too Hard" and elegiac closer "The Bells." In their place, you get the crash 'n' thump of "Don't Kill the Messenger," the Roky Erickson homage "The Way You Let Me Down," and the closing energy blast "Get Out of My Mind." Fair exchange.

ADDENDUM: Ron Sanchez sez, "The vinyl comes with a 17 song download which collects all the material recorded over the last year or so." You know what to do.