“ It’s amazing how time flies when you’re having fun. As mind mangling as it may seem, it’s a full twenty years since W.A.S.P. released their monstrous, self-titled debut album and exploded into the consciousness of all right- thinking, booze-guzzling rock ‘n’roll disciples with their trademark sound; that vicious, snot-encrusted combination of traditional rock values and unwaveringly contemporary passion and vigour.

During a decade that produced its fair share of great rock bands, W.A.S.P. made as convincing an attempt as any to claim the era as their own, treading on as many pious, small-minded people’s toes as possible and kicking up a blood-splattered, cum-drenched stink wherever they went. And, even though they were often better known for the controversy they generated than their music, Blackie Lawless and his deranged colleagues always had the creative substance to back up their admirable twat-baiting efforts.

The album you have in your hand represents some of W.A.S.P.’s finest moments. Although far from a comprehensive trawl through the band’s hugely impressive back catalogue, ‘The Best Of The Best’ is a superb introduction to a band that, more so than any other, gave the US Kicking off with.‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’, the stroppiest most gnarly cover version of an Elton John song ever committed to tape, this is an album that demands to be played at the kind of volume that causes structural damage to buildings and leaves the listener with howling, debilitating tinnitus. Lots of bands rock like motherfuckers, but in metal terms W.A.S.P. take some beating.

Just listen to the lascivious brutality of ‘Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)’, the anthemic rumble of ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’, the bravura glam-punk of ‘Show No Mercy’ or the twisted, moonshine-addled juggernaut of ‘Blind In Texas’; these are songs that still astound with their breathtaking anger and energy and the throbbing, gleaming rock‘n’roll engine that drives them along. Moving on into the more daring territory of the band’s late 80s and early 90s material, a song as powerful and emotive as ‘Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue)’ makes mincemeat of the competition; those pouting, vapid gooks of the glam metal era who, in many cases, may have sold more records than W.A.S.P. but for whom the sheer, exasperating realness of these timeless songs was a creative step too far. Forget it, fucknuts, W.A.S.P. were always a out above the rest, and one listen to this album’s closing triumvirate of ‘Unreal’, ‘Helldorado’ and ‘Dirty Balls’ — three songs from sessions for 1999’s awesome ‘Helldorado’ album — confirms that the band were still firing on all cylinders well into their second decade of creative endeavour.

This album serves two purposes. The first to provide newcomers to the world of W.A.S.P. with an irresistible introduction to the band’s remarkable canon. The second is to inspire fans of impassioned rock‘n’roll to seek out the rest of the band’s albums, whether it be the mighty neo-prog rock of ‘The Headless Children’, the evil industrial sprawl of ‘Kill Fuck Die’ or the astonishing emotional splurge of ‘Dying For The World’.

Here’s your starting point, boys and girls. Now get stuck in...” ~ Dom Lawson