Stools, The - R U Saved? [PURPLE VINYL. DETROIT PUNK.] - New LP

When I was a little buzzcut little kid, we moved to Michigan in 1967 and as the past bolted into the 1970s, we raced around the streets, schoolyards and graveyards on dirtbikes, Briggs and Strattons bolted to homemade brakeless go-carts, minibikes, mopeds, skateboards and stingrays, the 8-track generation who knew nothing about the Beatles and everything about Alice Cooper (the band), the overloaded capoose of the baby boom destroying the past and filling the streets and racing to oblivion...and back then all the garage cans on the side of the road were made of metal, some sunken in cement cavities in the ground outside garages, some in the sunken oil-changing pits built into the cement floor of select garages, some grease-monkey uncle making a racket down there under the shadows of his old Mopar...we'd take the greasy grimy lids of those garbage cans and use them for warfare in the streets, used them as shields in battles with tree limbs and hockey sticks and bb guns...and the pollution hits eggs hard and killed the birds so the bugs were bad, but bats were mammals so they survived, were the kings of the sky at night, and down on the ground, we'd smear firefly guts across our cheeks so our faces glowed in the dark, chucking fists of gravel up into the lightning bug night sky and watch the bats swoop down, the creatures jack-kniving away at the last moment when they realized the stones weren't bugs, and we'd laugh out our greasy grimy gopher guts and return to our battles, use the garbage can lids as shields as we battled in the streets, chucking fuel packs of Este rockets and shooting roman candles at the garbage can lid shields of our enemies (aka our best friends)...anyway, that's what this album by the Stools sounds like to me, a group of friends making a racket and having a blast, all pissed off and who-cares happy, full of menace and abandonment, dangerous to some, best friends to others and each other, grabbing what they got, gathering in the garage, hooking arms and kicking it out. -- winch

This is The Stools third/first  LP ? & it’s the one that has grown & developed barb wire balls.  This is their best..industrial chunky, bluesy, ballsy, kick ass filth bag Detroit, Michigan dirty Rock n Roll, the way it should be. Beautiful. -- James Dixon (aka the punk-sniffin' dog)

"The Motor City does it again, folks! From the birthplace of some of the most significant sounds of the past sixty-odd years, the Stools are certainly no exception to Detroit's musical legacy. The trio's self-professed "Nuggets vs. Killed By Death" sound is back in full effect on 'R U Saved?', which could be considered the first proper Stools full length after a slew of EPs and singles. Whether you're just hearing 'em for the first time or have been tuned in through past releases on Drunken Sailor, Goodbye Boozy, Third Man, and Big Neck - the Stools are at the top of their game here in 2023. Twelve songs in twenty-three minutes, a blaze of bluesy punk damage born from a steady diet of the Stooges, Negative Approach, and the Gories with a dash of that far-gone Memphis sound in the mix. The Stools are a fine-tuned unit across 'R U Saved?' - an album chock full of replay value from the raw, unpretentious, and industrious Detroit trio."