Dolled up in white like his colleagues, Punky Meadows was the drop-dead cool guitarist of the cult 1970s hard rockers Angel – a true Marmite band. Gene Simmons recommended the Washington DC band to Kiss’s label Casablanca, but they infuriated Frank Zappa enough for him to write Punky’s Whips (‘His hair’s so shiny, I love his hips’).
After Angel’s early-1980s demise Meadows vanished, reportedly running a tanning salon in Virginia before retiring from music a decade ago. Punky’s first post-Angel music represents an unlikely yet welcome comeback, the presence of former bandmate Felix Robinson on bass whetting the appetite further still.
Perplexingly, several of the record’s weakest tunes are early in the running order, although much of this album is cut from the same white satin cloth of his former group, including I Wanna Be Your Drug and Searchin’. A return to the spotlight, rather than changing sun-bed tubes, beckons.
