"Classic late-period sleaze rock, all chugging guitar and tomcat howl": L.A. Guns appear impervious to age on Leopard Skin

Sunset Strip veterans L.A. Guns' late-career hot streak continues on album number 15

LA Guns
(Image: © Joe Schaeffer)

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L.A. Guns are the Joan Collins of the 1980s Sunset Strip scene: either impervious to age, or with a really good plastic surgeon on speed dial.

Coinciding with their 40th anniversary, and coming eight years after previously estranged singer Phil Lewis and guitarist Tracii Guns kissed and made up after years of lobbing insults at each other from across the street, the most surprising thing about Leopard Skin is that they’ve never used that title before.

But there’s no point in these Hollywood big cats changing their spots at this stage. Lucky Motherfucker and Follow The Master are classic late-period sleaze rock, all lowdown, chugging guitar from Guns and tomcat howl from the ever-characterful Lewis.

They garnish The Grinder with some cool slide guitar, and serve up a restrained ballad with The Masquerade, but no one’s reinventing the wheel here, and after 40 years nor should they be. Joan would be proud.

Dave Everley

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.