The Cramps debuted in 1978 with a pair of stunning self-released singles that laid out their aesthetic in quick, bold strokes: an apocalyptic cover of the Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird” backed with a version of rockabilly also-ran Jack Scott’s “The Way I Walk” that replaced smooth background vocals with anguished screams, and an original, “Human Fly,” backed with a cover of the obscure Roy Orbison non-hit “Domino.” They signed with I.R.S. Records, who combined these four tracks with a version of Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town” to make up the Gravest Hits EP, and then it was time for a full-length album. Songs The Lord Taught Us, produced by Alex Chilton, took the pounding beat and simple riffs of early rock ’n’ roll, played with perfect rawness by guitarists Poison Ivy Rorschach (the band’s unacknowledged mastermind) and Bryan Gregory and drummer Nick Knox, and let frontman Lux Interior go wild up front. His vocal style took the hiccups, yelps and passionate cries of Gene Vincent, Little Richard, and more obscure singers like Billy Lee Riley and upped the dose with a fevered intensity that made you step back to avoid getting any on you. You could put him next to the B-52s’ Fred Schneider, kinda, but he was his own demonic thing. Interior and Rorschach, an offstage couple, were fanatical record collectors, and one of the Cramps’ best tricks was to find forgotten/unknown instrumentals and write brilliant lyrics to them. Hence “TV Set,” a serial killer’s confession set atop Don and the Galaxies’ “Sundown”; “Garbageman,” a band intro/anthem built on the Rumblers’ “Boss”; “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” with its amazing opening couplet (“I was a teenage werewolf/Braces on my fangs”), borrowed from the Shades’ “Strolling After Dark”; and more. These are slotted in alongside acknowledged covers of Johnny Burnette’s “Tear It Up,” Little Willie John’s “Fever,” and the Sonics’ “Strychnine” to create one of those albums that constructs an entire world and leaves the door open just a crack — enter at your own risk.