The Sonics have one of the better names in rockdom so it is fitting, and fortunate, that they should have one of the signature sounds, too. Long unavailable on CD, the Sonics' first two albums, Here Are the Sonics (1965) and their sophomore offering, Boom (1966), have recently been reissued, and fans of Nuggets-style garage punk have reason to cheer and frug wildly.

The Sonics' legacy has long been kept alive by — and provided inspiration to — legions of latter-day garage ravers, including the Fuzztones (who lovingly covered "Cinderella") and the Cramps ("Strychnine") to name a few. But there's nothing like returning to the source.

The Sonics came on in late 1963 like the jet engines that fueled a growing aviation industry in and around their native Tacoma, Wash. With guitar, bass and sax chugging madly ahead, the ferocious gutbucket pounding of drummer Bob Bennett and throat-scraping screams of singer and piano player Gerry Roslie led them.

>From the opening track on Here Are the Sonics, it's apparent that these are five boys in a supercharged hurry. With a cover repertoire that shares more than a few tracks with the early Beatles ("Money," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Good Golly Miss Molly"), the Sonics inject these R&B workhorses with a pure American industrial throb that makes the import versions sound anemic. Where the Liverpudlians picked up their Chuck Berry basics second-hand at best, the Sonics followed Elvis to the other side of town, catching the likes of Ike Turner and James Brown. The result sounds like the musical offspring of Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard — without the religion.

And their versions can stand beside Little Richard's not so much for their soul as their speed and intensity. And their meanness. After all, their first two singles are original love songs called "The Witch" (RealAudio excerpt and "Psycho," followed later, on album, by a tune called "Strychnine" (RealAudio excerpt) ("Some folks like water/ Some folks like wine/ But I like the taste/ Of straight strychnine" — and Marilyn Manson is a corrupter of youth?)

They're dirty enough to almost rescue "Do You Love Me?" from Dirty Dancing purgatory, something arguably beyond the ability of any band now, and they show their true colors on the jauntily mean-spirited holiday bonus track "Don't Believe in Christmas" ("Fat guy didn't show") — as the Beatles later did on their various wimpy Xmas fan-club singles.

The Sonics' achievement turns on two albums and assorted oddities, not unlike a later rock product from Washington state — and though the Sonics cannot lay claim to a zeitgeist-altering moment as Nirvana can, these two records go a long way toward turning Cobain and Co. into johnnies-come-lately, as concerns Pacific Northwest rock supremacy. Here Are the Sonics!!! and Boom are classics, no less essential in their way than Nirvana's Nevermind and In Utero.

If strychnine doesn't satisfy, the Sonics most certainly will.