Bags Sharpen Your Sticks CD

After a break of about a dozen years, the Bags -- who, in their original incarnation, lasted from about the mid-'80s to the early '90s -- reunited to begin performing and recording again. The 2005 Sharpen Your Sticks album finds them still toeing the line between hard rock and punk-influenced hard rock. If you liked 'em the first time around, you'll probably still like 'em; the sound and songs are very much consistent with the approach they first established in the prior millennium. As to what the point of these sharpened sticks might be, it's kind of elusive. Much of the lyrics are over the top enough in their reckless gore that it seems as if they might be aiming for satire, but it's not that funny. If they're really just another straight-up lunkheaded hard rock band, there are others who do that much better (or, at least, have managed to make a lot more money at it). It's an ugly, crunching affair, whether deliberately so or not, with lyrics about the likes of cutting tongues out, fast food spiced with zombies, Ivan the Terrible, rallying cavemen to rejoice, and deprecating putdowns of both other losers and themselves. The riffs aren't catchy enough to stick in your head in either a good or bad way. It's an ungainly effort all around. ~ Richie Unterberger

The Boston Phoenix says:"Along with Bullet LaVolta, the Bags are the band most often credited (or blamed, in some circles) for introducing punk metal to Boston. Which means that they don’t have to worry too much about their sound having gone out of style since they last rocked. In fact, to a large extent, the new CD picks up where 1991’s Night of the Corn People left off. There is a key difference, though: the CD of Corn People had 13 songs and ran 69 minutes. (Granted, one of those songs was "Waiting for Maloney," the first and only lengthy rock opera about commuting from Allston to rehearse.) The new disc serves up 15 songs in 36 minutes: the sound is still metallic, but the songs are all punchy and punky. Meanwhile, the lyrics from Wood and Hardy amount to a puncturing of metal’s ponderous tendencies. Imagine the post-therapy self-loathing of Metallica’s St. Anger played for laughs and you’d have the Bags’ "Believer" or "Ass Kicker" ("You’re gonna kick my ass, that I do know — Kung Foe"). So forget about this being just a respectable comeback and call it the Bags’ best album. Period." -Brett Milano "Cavemen Rejoice" - from Sharpen Your Sticks - is featured in the hit PlayStation 2 video game Guitar Hero.Jon Hardy, Jim Janota, and Crispin Wood formed The Bags in the summer of 1985. They unleashed their unique blend of hard rock and punk on the Boston club scene in September of that year.In 1987 they recorded and released their debut album Rock Starve. Charles M. Young wrote about Rock Starve in Playboy (March, 1988): "The Bags (from Boston) fall somewhere among the Ramones, Husker Du, and early Kiss. Their debut, Rock Starve (Restless), consists of thrilling guitar-bash riffs that pound like the sound of a herd of giant woolly mammoths going over a cliff, just enough melody rasping though shredded vocal chords and lyrics wholly unbesmirched by any panty-waist college-poetry influence."The Bags toured the U.S. in 1988.In 1989, The Bags released their first single on Stanton Park (I Know / Hide And Seek). They also took top honors by unanimous vote, winning the 11th Annual WBCN Rock 'n' Roll Rumble. Later on that year they released an album on Stanton Park under one of their many aliases, Swamp Oaf. Byron Coley wrote about Swamp Oaf in Spin (February 1990): "This Boston trio (perhaps best known for their non-thug work under the name the Bags) have a sense of compositional burl most redolent of early/mid period Blue Cheer. The guitar quick-switches between ass-puddle wah-boom and overblown zorch-flash with Leigh Stevens-oid flair, and these guys don't get even close to the Zep cliche path most of their "peers" are treading.In 1990 The Bags released their