0839. The Stranglers
Rattus Norvegicus

One of relatively few British '77 punks that actually had serious musical chops, The Stranglers' debut sounds a whole lot more serious than most of their contemporaries.

In some ways The Stranglers have more in common with The Doors than the Sex Pistols or The Damned.

Okay, maybe not serious as far as some of the lyrics go (cause here and there they're somewhat absurd), but serious as in "these guys have been practicing". And you can hear it from the first note in Sometimes, too (and apparently they also sounded equally good live).

The hit single Peaches, about a bloke going to the beach to ogle women, is (hopefully) satirizing macho culture but got banned by the Beeb for its NSFW content.

Actually called IV, Rattus Norvegicus joins that subset of albums whose popular names are something completely different from their given names.