Plasmatics ‎– Coup D’Etat [Rock Candy Remastered+4 bonus] 2005, MP3+FLAC

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This hard to find / sold out remastered reissue by Rock Candy Records of PLASMATICS 1982’s album “Coup d’Etat” was requested here many times. Now we have it in full, a rocking album really benefited by this sonic lifting, and including four bonus tracks.

Led by uber rock queen Wendy O. Williams, a woman who pushed female empowerment to its ultimate conclusion, this New York outfit took a real and rare delight in blowing up cars, hacking apart guitars and generally leaving a trail of spare parts in their wake.

They came from the era of punk. They literally turned the New York rock music scene on its head back in 1978. Wendy Orleans Williams was the driving force of the band, a focal point who made female peers like Joan Jett, Pat Benatar and Ann Wilson look pussy-cat tame by comparison.
The Plasmatics blazed their own path through the turn of the Seventies. At one point, they were a headline act without actually being signed to a label.

Venues all over New York City were fair game, the band introducing audiences to exploding cars, chainsaw threatened guitars, destroyed TV sets and speaker cabinets, and of course ‘the Mohawk’, which is where it all started for that hairstyle. Thank you Jean Beauvoir…
Yeah, in the early days, Beauvoir was the bassist in the band, but he had departed by the time they landed this third studio full-length album – for the first time on a major label, Capitol Records – in 1982, titled ‘Coup D’Etat’.

Produced by Dieter Dierks (Scorpions) and engineered by Michael Wagener (you know the guy), this has got ‘big ticket’ written all over it. Certainly this is less punk and a more hard rock / metal album.
Wendy’s voice is as tough as nails; apparently she nearly lost her voice because of the strain she put on it in the studio.
Things kick off with the immense ‘Put Your Love In Me’, sexual innuendo at its extreme with a solid rhythm section and huge, gruff vocals. Keeping up the assault, ‘Stop’ is hardly that; instead, it’s an anthem for the disaffected youth of the day.

‘Rock N Roll’ has a touch of Mutt Lange-produced AC/DC, and they put the ‘boof’ into the Motorhead standard ‘No Class’, which absolutely locks this album into metal territory. ‘Mistress Of Taboo’ has a punkish sort of energy, the bullet-like drum-work a stand-out.
‘Path Of Glory’ has a rolling thunder approach to its delivery. A couple of tracks put an anchor on the metronome, such as the unusual ‘Lightning Breaks’, plus the pairing of ‘Country Fairs’ and ‘Just Like On TV’.
The bonus tracks include a song that didn’t make it into the album, plus demos showcasing how much some songs evolved later.

“Coup d’Etat” is the most impressive, most inflammable album in Plasmatics’ career, an aggressive but at the same time very polished record (thanks Dierks) plenty of punchy songs full of attitude.
This is a good listen years later. I never really got into this back in 1982, but I’m making up for lost time with this excellent Rock Candy remastering, something this LP needed now sounding fuller.
Highly Recommended

1 Put Your Love In Me 3:55
2 Stop 4:40
3 Rock N Roll 4:23
4 Lightning Breaks 3:58
5 No Class 2:36
6 Mistress Of Taboo 3:16
7 Country Fairs 3:37
8 Path Of Glory 4:45
9 Just Like On TV 3:17
10 The Damned 4:24
11 Uniformed Guards (Work-In-Progress Recording) 4:07
12 Put Your Love In Me (Demo) 4:13
13 Stop (Demo) 4:35
14 Coup D'Etat Radio Ad 1:00

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