The Sonics are Back and Death is very much alive.

There are certain acts -- a lot of them to be sure -- whose music has inspired me to undergo this modest little venture which you are reading right now. Most of them have disbanded or faded from music altogether and many of them have in fact shed their mortal coil. It's with great joy -- and no small degree of amazement -- that I found out that garage rock legends the Sonics and first-wave protopunkers Death have both released new albums in the last couple of weeks. The most amazing thing of all -- both are really good!

Unbelievable though it may seem, the Sonics are back after a break of almost 50 years. Even more incredible is that they sound like they’ve aged barely 50 minutes. I don’t know what these guys have been up to all this time, but I will you this – 70 year-olds were never this cool when I was growing up.

One of the arguments that keeps music geeks endlessly bickering is over just who was the first punk band. Along with the Stooges, the New York Dolls and the MC5, the Sonics frequently come up, and they predate all the other groups. First punkers or not, in this blogger’s humble opinion, rock and roll doesn’t get any more rock and roll than the Sonics.

The group’s musical formula isn’t complicated. First, drop prodigious and pounding use of Little Richard (and to a lesser degree, Chuck Berry)-styled riffs courtesy of Larry Papyra, and add nuclear-powered drumming, taken up these days by Dusty Watson. Rob Lind’s ratty saxophone rounds out the music, and his vocals – which must have been terrifying back in the mid-60s – roar like a Peterbilt engine.

Perhaps their best known song is their rollicking cover of Richard Berry’s “Have Love Will Travel,” which these days has found it’s way into a commercial or two. The Sonic’s take of another  Berry song, “Louie Louie” is Nirvana  two and a half decades years early that makes the Kingmen’s earlier stab sound like Muzak.

“Strychnine” and “Psycho” carry snarling rock ferocity that nobody came close to until the Sex Pistols, and their covers of Little Richard tunes like “Good Golly Miss Molly” rank second only to Little Richard himself. They also help absolve the Caucasian race of the crimes against humanity that were the cover versions of "Tutti Frutti" done by Pat Boone and Elvis Presley.

 So OK, they rocked the mid ‘60s. What about the new CD?

The great news is that the new album, “This is the Sonics,” on the Revox label, doesn’t monkey around with what ain’t broken. The formula remains intact, and so does all the fun. In this day and age when mainstream rock sounds like it was recorded somewhere in Guantanamo Bay, the Sonics new CD is bursting with joy and excitement.

The new album is made up mostly of covers, but for those who know, any song the Sonics do becomes theirs. Already, "I Don't Need No Doctor" has been picked on Little Steven's Underground Garage as a "Coolest Song In The World," and deservedly so, with its pounding beat and frantic tempo. It’s tough to top the Kinks, but the Sonics’ version of “The Hard Way” comes pretty close.  R&B covers like “Sugaree” and Bo Diddley’s “You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover” get the full blown Sonics treatment that takes the band right back to their earliest days.

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Look at Little Sister” gets upbeat and grungy and leaves you panting for breath by the time it’s done. “I’ve Got You Number” which it turns out, is 666, is a great rocker that induces a few chuckles, too.

Where, oh where are the bands making music like this? There are some wonderful garage rocks bands out there now, but geez, they have a lot to learn from the Sonics. Hopefully, these guys will call class into session much sooner than the 49 years they took to reconvene this one.

Also releasing an album is the Detroit proto-punk band Death, whom before about two years ago were largely – and tragically -- unknown. That changed in 2012 with the documentary “A Band Called Death.” If you are a Netflix subscriber, I give you permission to stop reading this blog right now and go watch the film. It is a terrific chronicle of a terrific band, with a very compelling – and ultimately, hopeful – story.

The few-sentence version is this. Three brothers from Detroit – David, Dennis and Bobby Hackney – formed a rock band in the early ‘70s that arguably beat the Ramones to the punch in creating punk (although, again, this is music geek battle-royale territory).

But they were different, namely, they were African-Americans playing rock and roll. To younger readers, this may sound stupid – and it is – but music was far more  compartmentalized and racially divided than it is now. Rock was for white kids, while black folks stuck with funk and soul, at least that was the thumbnail of music audiences by race. I grew up in Detroit around this time and I remember those demarcations very well.

Of course, plenty of both fans and musicians – George Clinton most notably -- crossed those lines and threw dirt on them. But the music industry, then and now, is all about the pigeonhole. If a record company suit or a promoter decides what music you play because of where he thinks your grandfather comes from, that’s it. Only after bands like the Bus Boys and Living Colour scrapped their way to very hard-fought success was that nonsense finally put to bed.

But it wasn’t the paint job that hurt Death the most. It was band leader David Hackney’s steadfast refusal to change the group’s name on principled grounds that prevented them from being offered those coveted contracts and limelights they so richly deserved. Then, David, who drifted in and out of music, died in 2000. Death seemed destined to become just another great rock band that nobody ever heard of.

Unprofessional though this may come across, the film worked in no small part because the brothers come across not just as visionary musicians but also as great guys, the kind you really wish you had a few of in your family.

But, a few of the aforementioned geeks did hear of them, amongst them a nephew of Hackney’s. He had his own punk band, loved Death’s music not knowing that he was digging his own uncles and father. To use a horrible cliché, one thing led to another, and the two remaining Hackney brothers – who for a long time had a fine reggae band, Lambsbread, revived Death.

The new album is called, aptly enough, “N.E.W.”  Dennis and Bobby Hackney would probably be the first to tell you that David is irreplaceable, and compared to the great Ep “…For the Whole World to See,” released in 2009 after sitting in vaults for an ungodly amount of time, it’s clear.

But these guys are tough and deserve to be judged on their own merits, and “N.E.W.” deserves a fair day in court. The verdict? Excellent album.

The CD is chock full of terrific guitar licks, served up by Bobbie Duncan, who takes on the unenviable task of assuming David’s role.  He responds with a fine assortment of licks ranging from thrashy (“You Are What You Think” and “Relief”) to deeply melodic. (“Look At Your Life”).

Lyrically, the band continues the sort of metaphysical discourse that made the band so unique and so out of the ordinary back in the day. “The Story of the World” and “Look at Your Life” plead for introspection and thought. “Resurrection” and “Change” end the album, pointing to a bright future both for humanity and for the band.

The album is worthwhile if, for no other reason, intelligent music that rocks is rather hard to find. Death led the way many years ago, and “N.E.W.” shows they’re still fully up to the task.