Absolutely share your opinion about the Dead Boys.
So...
Pretty much all their albums before their disbandment in the early 80s are good and worth a listen.
They get progressively more whimsical and experimental and less punkish, a development you no doubt already noticed between The Modern Dance and Dub Housing.
Their reunion album The Tenement Year isn't as highly regarded as their early stuff, but I really love it. The synthesizers are wilder than ever, there is some great guitar there, there are two drummers, one of them the amazing Chris Cutler. A lot of the songs are more conventional, but the arrangements and the overall craziness still make them fun and typically Ubu.
Cloudland and World In Collision, the two albums after that, are their poppiest. It's alternative rock, nothing special. I listen to them now and then, but it's certainly not required listening.
The phase between "Story Of My Life" and "Why I Hate Women" is significantly better, they get weirder again, although the songs aren't as deconstructed as their early work, the mood is mostly darker.
If I'm in the mood for this phase, I usually listen to the live album "A Ghost Town Goes Where You Want To Go". Great selection of songs, cool performance, good sound.
Long Live Père Ubu! is an unusual album even for them, it's based on the Jarry play they took their name from. It features vocals by Sarah Jane Morris. I really like the play and the music is damn cool, Morris also does a great job. The lyrics and music are darkly humorous and often creepy. Pretty good, but possibly not an album for the casual fan.
The two newest albums have an electronic and often minimalistic, calmer sound. They are refreshingly experimental for a band that late in their career and pretty good as well, but I'm not that excited by them. I have to admit though, that I've listened to both only a couple of times.
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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.
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