Exploding Fuck Dolls – Crack the Safe (2004)

Despite the range of years in the title, almost all of the material on this 19-track career overview was recorded between 1991 and 1994, when the Exploding Fuck Dolls were one of the premier -- and certainly the best-named -- bands on the Orange County punk circuit. Like Black Flag's Everything Went Black, Crack the Safe is divided chronologically by the band's three singers, Kevin Edman, Duane Peters (who joined when Edman died of an overdose), and Kris Swanson (who took over when Peters left to form the more successful U.S. Bombs). Peters is, of course, the standout singer, but the Exploding Fuck Dolls' secret weapons were bassist Art Godoy and drummer Steve Godoy, twin brothers better known as professional skaters back in the sport's pre-endorsement-deal-'80s heyday. As solid a rhythm section as one can find in '90s punk, the brothers' roots went back all the way to the Stooges and Radio Birdman (they later recorded with Deniz Tek, in fact), giving songs like "Lap of Luxury" and "All Kinds of Girls" (not the Real Kids' similarly-titled song) a heft and power that the post-Green Day pop-punk bands could never match.