Carved firmly from the same rock of resolute punkiness as its predecessor, Killed by Death: Raw Rare Punk Rock, Vol. 2 continues surveying the cream of the lost punk scene of the mainly ’80s, by illustrating at least a handful of the stylistic extremes that fell beneath that banner. Compared to volume one, volume two — with stalwarts the Child Molestors’ wholly unexpected cover of Yoko Ono’s “Don’t Worry Kyoko,” through the similarly returning Mad, and onto Boston’s supremely snotty Nervous Eaters (truly one of that city’s finest ever creations) — might not pack the same mainstream collector kudos, but it more than compensates via the genuine excellence of its obscurities.
Again, the emphasis is on American punk, but ratty contributions from Sweden’s Rude Kids and Australia’s Psycho Surgeons pave the way for the eclectic travelogue of later volumes, and prove that punk made as much sense in such far-flung lands as it ever did in its “traditional” stomping grounds.