The Stooges - Ready to Die (LP)

Facts Vinyl LP pressing. 2013 release, the first studio album to bear the name 'Iggy & The Stooges' since Raw Power was released in 1973! Ready to Die finds Iggy Pop, guitarist James Williamson and drummer Scott "Rock Action" Asheton reunited for a full album of all-new material with Mike Watt filling in for the late Ron Asheton on bass. The results are the closest thing to a time capsule to 1973 - or at least to Iggy's subsequent efforts with Williamson, including 1977's Kill City and 1979's New Values - that rock 'n' roll is likely to proffer in this millennium. The new album's opening one-two of 'Burn' and 'Sex & Money' pair sublimely blunt and self-explanatory subject matter with back alley razor-blade guitars and a troglodytic rhythmic stomp as intensely single-minded as Iggy's lyrical statements of intent. Elsewhere on the album, anthems abound in the form of the most dead-on rallying cry for the lower-working-class dispossessed to date-the succinctly and aptly titled 'Job' - as well as a title track that mixes a signature Iggy Pop mission statement of angry desperation with guitar pyrotechnics that recall those halcyon opening salvos of 'Search & Destroy.'