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"&lt;p&gt;Iggy Pop may have taken up golf in Miami, but when properly motivated, he&amp;apos;s still plenty capable of sounding like the original dead-end kid wriggling out of a straitjacket. On &lt;em&gt;Skull Ring&lt;/em&gt;, motivation arrives in the form of Ron and Scott Asheton, the two surviving members of Pop&amp;apos;s pioneering protopunk band the Stooges, who reunite with the world&amp;apos;s forgotten boy on four tracks.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;wm:embed type=\"related\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;p&gt;After thirty years apart, they still sound like the blue-collar skull-crashers they once were, minus a killer track as good as &amp;quot;I Wanna Be Your Dog&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Loose.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Little Electric Chair&amp;quot; comes close, with the three Stooges turning the notion of burning flesh into a party for the perverse, complete with syncopated hand claps and war-whoop vocals. Ron Asheton&amp;apos;s strafe-and-destroy guitar is a thing of sheer malice, and it&amp;apos;s thrilling to hear it rip while Pop performs an autopsy on &amp;quot;Dead Rock Star.&amp;quot; But the singer&amp;apos;s production emphasizes sonics rather than songs, as the tossed-off melodies collapse in a riot of guitars and drums.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;For hooks, Pop turns to a couple of bands that owe him big, influence-wise: Sum 41 dish the album&amp;apos;s most developed melody, on &amp;quot;Little Know It All,&amp;quot; and Green Day bring a pogo-friendly spunk to &amp;quot;Super-market.&amp;quot; Far more adventurous is Pop&amp;apos;s duet with anti-diva Peaches on the seething electroclash rant &amp;quot;Rock Show.&amp;quot; The acoustic &amp;quot;Till Wrong Feels Right,&amp;quot; which takes its melody from an old Mississippi Fred McDowell song, finds Pop at his feistiest, a music-biz outcast pouring vinegar on old wounds.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, Pop puts the head-banging on autopilot with his longtime touring band, the Trolls, to fill out this overlong seventeen-track album. The Trolls, like most of Pop&amp;apos;s later accomplices, never measure up to the Stooges&amp;apos; mastery of the hip-shaking, earth-shifting groove. With the Ashetons back on his radar, the Ig&amp;apos;s next move should be obvious.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/skull-ring-20031103>