The Last Vegas: Bad Decisions
These Chicago glam-slammers were born for wrecking stadiums, and they’ve been on the cusp of doing exactly that for nearly a decade now. They’ve toured with all the heavy-hitters – Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, AC/DC – and have plied their filthy wares all over the globe to enraptured fans. But the bitch of it is, sleaze rock in all its grimy glory has crawled back into the underground. It wallows around in the slimy gutters of Gothenburg, or in shooting galleries in Brooklyn, occasionally stumbling out to play apocalyptic basement gigs to 50 or so smacked-out teens. And half the time, the guitars are actually laptops. Where The Last Vegas really belong is 1989, sharing stages and STDs with the Sea Hags, Faster Pussycat and Spread Eagle, all of whom they brilliantly resemble in sound and attitude. In fact, I’ll just say it right now: Bad Decisions is the best album of 1989. So close your eyes, remember when you were young, skinny and your hair flowed long and free, and just, y’know, rock the fuck out. (7⁄10)
Wicked Little Dolls: The Secrets of Blvd East
Remember Celtic Frost’s stab at sinister glam, Cold Lake? Wicked Little Dolls sound like they just bubbled up from beneath its murky depths. Ramshackle, horror-obsessed sleaze-punk by black metal loons. Front-fiend Scarefina coos and growls like a possessed devil-child, and Luci’s doomy guitar chases the songs along like it wants to eat them. (6⁄10)
Pow Wows: Nightmare Soda
Wobbly, lo-fi drunk’n’roll from Toronto. Taking their cues from 60s garage rock and 70s punk, the Pow Wows offer up a perfectly debauched vision of cop-baiting weekend-long blowouts full of cigarette smoke, puke-stained carpets and bloody noses. Standouts: Séance, which sounds exactly like the bedspins feel, and the caustic Worry…Don’t, which is so punk I think it spat at me. (7⁄10)
Honky: 421
If, like me, Texas makes you think of blistering heat and getting punched into pudding by dudes in cowboy hats and made in USA belt-buckles, Honky’s latest dose of ripsnorting superboogie will both titilate and terrify you. Formed by former Butthole surfers bassist JD Pinkus, Honky is ZZ Top with their beards on fire, guzzling high-octane cactus juice in Willie Nelson’s bathtub. (6⁄10)
Dogshit Boys: German Girlfriend + More Shits!
The Dogshit Boys play Flashrock, which you may think involves cool clothes or stun-gun guitars. It does not. Flashrock is the sound of anti-social creeps belching out Pistols-y glam punk and then pissing themselves. This cassette-only release is basically the soundtrack to the scariest party in the world. Half of it’s in Finnish, but it hardly matters. Dogshit is the same in any language. (6⁄10)
