The Vikings - Go Beserk!

The Vikings were a punk rock "super group" made up of members of the Yum Yums (Morten - guitar & vocals), Devil Dogs (Steve - bass & vocals) and Turbonegro (bassist Tom here on drums and Knut - EuroBoy - on lead guitar), who got together to make this one (think this was the only one) classic slab of r'n'r.

I was never a big Devil Dogs fan, but Steve's numbers come off well here, like the opener "My Friend's Little Sister" and "Bad to Be Good". Happy Tom's influences come through in "Hard Knox High" and I would assume that Morten's pop influences helped with the high octane take on Bobby Fuller's "Let Her Dance". I'm not familiar with the original, but I dig the sentiment in "It's Cool to Rock" (the Accelerators), though "Strike Out King" doesn't stick with me, though Euro Boy does play some hot leads! The guys do pull off a rockin' take on the Bay City Rollers' "Let's Go" and then there's several Baise songs that are pretty basic D.Dogs' styled punk rock, except for "Four Eyes" that is extremely silly but has a doo-wop feel.

A real stand-out here is "Tonight", a collaboration between Baise and Morten, with Morten's melodies obviously apparent and with him singing lead, making this very different - in a terrific way! More superb Knut leads, as well! They do an amazing take on Chubby Checker's "The Fly" (is that Morten singing there, as well?) and Joan Jett's "Push and Stomp" before Knut & Steve combine forces for the punk-pop "(5-4-3-2) Baby You're the 1" and then a fine reading of the Boys' "First Time". "No L.D." ("limp dick") is a little too goofy for me (the Turbo boys contributed to that one) though Baise's "Rock All" is a pretty cool blazingly fast punk rocker. There are really fun covers of "Surrender", the Nervous Eaters' "Just Head" and the Fun Things' "Savage" to close things out.

Of course, any fans of the Devil Dogs should pick this up, as it is similar but has more variety and just plain good times than most DD with the inclusion of Morten's pop influences and Euro Boy's terrific playing.