COBRA VERDE
� "Copycat Killers" (Scat Records)
� Aversion.com

Most self-modeled rock'n'roll messiahs such as Cobra Verde spend most of their careers trying to "save" things. The world, rock'n'roll, enough spare change to pick up a Schlitz 40-ounce for before the show are but the most popular. This time out, however, Cleveland's resident rock'n'roll junkies are all about destroying everything they get their hands on, at least in the note-for-note literalist sense.

Taking on a set full of cover songs, Cobra Verde smashes the blueprints of songs by the good (New Order), the bad (Pink) and the ridiculously obscure (The Easter Monkeys). Taking the shards of those songs, as well as a bunch of noise and attitude from the band member's own, much cooler, record collections, Copycat Killers solders its tracks back together for a scratch-and-dent take on pop hits.

Cobra Verde packs a big, no, humongous bong load and fires it up for Pink's "Get the Party Started" that crosses the onetime MTV favorite with Detroit-styled funk rock and a legion of marijuana references ("I'm getting high, so you'd better get the party started"). Thus, with heavily bloodshot eyes, Cobra Verde tries its hand at clusterfucking the canon with a slew of mix'n'match styles and songs. Continuing the funk vibe, Hawkwind returns as classic Motor City Motown in "Urban Guerilla," then Donna Summers gets spaced out with a distinctly Krautrock makeover of "I Feel Love." Blasting New Order's "Temptation" into straightforward pop isn't quite as successful for the band, nor is The Stones-go-lounge in "Play With Fire."

Cobra Verde's still a rock band, first and foremost, however, and, when it's not getting its goof on smashing up the pop lexicon, performs much better kicking up a racket and playing straightforward rock'n'roll. Shots on The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks," The Flamin' Groovies' "Yesterday's Numbers" and Mot the Hoople's "Rock and Roll Queen" show a more honest, if less creative, side of Verde.

Revering the old masters can be such a drag. Sometimes, it's just more fun to scribble moustaches and beards all over them as Cobra Verde does on Copycat Killers. It's not going to win the band too many new fans, save a few too-clever rock'n'roll fanatics with the record catalog deep and diverse enough to really enjoy this kind of monkeyshines.

-- Matt Schild