VOODOO DOLLS Poison In Your Drink 1983-1986 (CD)

(Crazy Love Records) 16 tracks

Voodoo Dolls - from Sweden, not to be confused with another band also bearing that name - burned fast, and they burned bright. Formed in 1983 and disbanding three years later, the band released an LP, a mini-LP and a seven-inch EP. Though they were inspired by rockabilly and traveled the psychobilly landscape, they plowed their own furrow - dipping into freakbeat and soul without ever straying far from their inspirations. In their world, edgy band originals like the swinger "Split Personality" and the unbridled "Vampireville" stood alongside unmistakable covers of CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" and Gloria Jones to Soft Cell and Dave Phillips & the Hot Rod Gang's "Tainted Love".
Poison In Your Drink 1983-1986 collects the essentials. There are even three previously unheard tracks: a foray into the Swedish sixties oddball group Annabee-Nox's "Bo Bo Boogie Pack", a grindingly brutal version of Don Cole's 1961 single "Lie Detector Machine" and a stuttering take on Bill Allen & The Backbeats' obscure 1958 B-side "Please Give Me Something".
Sweden had a booming garage rock scene, but the Voodoo Dolls stood out. No one else there musically reinterpreted the past in this way in the eighties. L-P Anderson (bass, vocals), Danny Engström (aka Danny Boy: guitar, vocals), drummer Leif Ekring (aka Spunk) and his replacement Pontus Hansson as well as the short-lived early singer Eric Kearley respected no musical boundaries. And when they had said what they had to say, it was time to call it a day.