Hard to believe it has been 18 years since this came out. I bought the cassette tape back in the day, and finally got a CD copy. Man, I forgot how much I love this album. It is damn near perfect... Short, sticky, loud songs played with a crooked grin and all cylinders firing at full p-rock power.
The opener, "Coattail Rider," refers to the post-Nirvana feeding frenzy that got them signed to SubPop, and is both funny and an indicator of their general self-awareness. For more insight, read Eric Davidson's great new book "We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988-2001 (Book)." Davidson spends nine or ten pages recounting the early history of the band and talking with Eddie Spaghetti. If you don't know, Davidson is the singer for New Bomb Turks, and if you like the old Crypt-era Turks material, you will probably like this.
The Supersuckers went on to become more rock and less punk in later years, and while I enjoy those releases too, "The Smoke of Hell" is their most ferocious and probably most fun effort. Hell, just play the audio samples and see what you think - these songs are not long, complex, or subtle, what you hear is what you'll get. Fast but never hardcore, funny, catchy, guitar pedals blazin' - this album rips it up. The Dan Clowes cover is great, too.