Recorded in Hollywood in August 2002 and released through a revived Vengeance Records, Fiends Of Dope Island is the Cramps’ eighth and final studio album, as well as their thirteenth album overall. Poison Ivy and Lux Interior handled the production themselves, keeping the project tied to the band’s own Los Angeles punk and garage-rock world rather than a major-label polish job.
The genre tags tell you the broad shape here, with punk, rock, rockabilly and garage rock in the mix. The track titles make the subject matter clear enough, from “Big Black Witchcraft Rock” and “Papa Satan Sang Louie” to “Dr. Fucker M.D. (Musical Deviant)” and “Elvis Fucking Christ!” There’s also “Fissure Of Rolando,” dedicated to John Agar after his death in 2002, and “Taboo,” which takes its title from the 1959 film that also gave the album its name. It’s a late Cramps release with a deliberately lurid frame and a strong connection to the group’s own label history. The paid edition comes on vinyl LP, with MP3 320, FLAC 16/44, ALAC, WAV and AIFF downloads for anyone building a digital Cramps collection.
