When I saw this band playing live last summer as they supported Social Distortion on their latest European tour I was pleasantly surprised. The way they were dressed up and covered with make-up they reminded me of the US hardrock bands of the mid- and early eightees, like Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi and most of all - Guns'n'Roses. Their music too reminded me of GNR – punk/glam/sleaze rock played with so much conviction that I think that they can learn Velvet Revolver some serious lessons in rock & roll! It was only until I received this CD to review that I found out that these guys weren't recently released from some United States freezing cell and brought back to life after being deep-frozen for 20 years. No, far from that – this band formed by Ask Gregen (also known from The Hellacopters) comes from Sweden! And they have been doing this thing on and off since 1987!

With this double-CD release the Backyard Babies celebrate their first signing of an American record deal. "Tinnitus" is a compilation of the best four songs from each of their last three albums. Twelve tracks of raw kick-in-the-ass trash punk rock and roll that stay in your head and make you wanna go out and tell all your friends about it. The second CD in the package contains the recordings of a show they did in Paris in May 2004 and proves that they rock just as hard when playing live as they sound on their studio-recordings.

If you listen to each of the three albums "Total 13" (1998), "Making Enemies Is Good" (2001) and "Stockholm Syndrome" (2003) you hear there's a subtile chronological difference between those albums. Their overall style, which definitely is best described as "fuck-you rock & roll" is maintained over the years, although it evolves slightly from a Guns'n'Roses meets Social Distortion kind of white trash rock into a little less sleazy, little more avarage main stream rocksound – more like the Goo Goo Dolls, only still a bit more on the raw edge. That might explain why they have chosen to shuffle the tracks instead of putting them on the album in order of date.

Some of the real ear-catchers on the "Tinnitus" album are the songs "Minus Celsius" which also was their first single from the 'Stockholm Syndrome' album, "Brand New Hate" (from 'Making Enemies Is Good') and the fantastic "Highlights" (from 'Total 13'). There's one more song that needs some special attention, not only because it's a little different from the rest of the songs, but especially because of the names of the people that they found willing to sing some lines in this song called "Friends". Guest appearances in this song are done by the late Joey Ramone (Ramones), Nina Persson (The Cardigans), Kory Clarke (Warrior Soul), Danko Jones and Michael Monroe (Hanoi Rocks).

All-in-all this CD rocks big time, although I personally like the older songs a bit more than the newer ones. And another little minor about this album is that it sounds so damn good that you want to play it over and over again – but after playing it for a few weeks now I can say that I'm starting to get a bit tired of listening to it. And that's a bit strange, cause usually I totally wear out a CD that I find as good as this one.