Various Artists

VARIOUS ARTISTS
HOW WE ROCK
BURNING HEART/EPITAPH
There's a reason words like explosive and bombastic are used to describe good rock & roll. When it's done right, that's exactly how it sounds: the musical equivalent of the bombing of Dresden, the aural version of a good police beating. And almost every band on this compilation makes for good rock & roll. If it was 1977, these bands would be called simply punk—think the Dead Boys and the Heartbreakers—but since the genre these days has devolved into an extreme-sports soundtrack, you'll need unwieldy descriptors like cock punk, rock punk or garage punk to perform the necessary musical ghetto-ization. The only truly bad song is the Donnas' "40 Boys in 40 Nights": Mötley Crüe was never good, revisionist historians be damned, so aping their bubble-glam pap with even less proficiency is doomed from the start. Thankfully, Sweden's Sahara Hotnights more than prove that females can rock just as hard as the testicled set, whether that's the Funhouse-style fuzz and overmodulation of the Hives and the Division of Laura Lee; the Motörhead-meets-more-meth death-combo of Zeke (sadly recently departed) and Puffball; or the booze-bongs-and-babes AC/DC attack of the Hellacopters, Gluecifer and Supersuckers. File this CD under Audio Kick in the Teeth—and be thankful for it. (Rex Reason)