Arriving on the heels of the introspective, acoustic Box Lunch, Noise Monkeys -- Cub Koda's reunion album with the Points, his first band after the demise of Brownsville Station -- may come as a bit of a surprise. Make no mistake about it, the title of the record tells you what this album is all about: this is loud, dumb, fun, hard-driving rock & roll, the kind that sounds like it was cut by a bunch of noise monkeys. Some fans may have forgotten that Koda can rock hard when he wants to, and that's what he does with the Points on Noise Monkeys. The bulk of the album was recorded live in the studio in one day in June 1999; the final two songs were recorded live in concert, the following day. Not surprisingly, the album is a bracing, immediate, and above all, loud record, filled with guitars, guitars, and guitars. He hasn't rocked this hard or this intensely since the first Points album. But this record is a better one on many levels, due to the fact that the band members have matured as musicians. They can now knock off these songs in one take and sound totally convincing and energetic. But don't think that this is sophisticated music -- this is dumb rock & roll, and proudly so -- and it's all the better for it. Koda and the Points pound away, sounding stronger and better at the turn of the millennium than they did at the turn of the '70s. Sure, some of the songs are silly, but that's the point. The end result is a satisfying hard rock album with humor and character -- something like that doesn't come along every day.