It’s no coincidence that the creators of both Fawlty Towers and The Office, two of the most influential and beloved sitcoms in history, decided to shelve the shows after their second series, Messrs Cleese and Gervais believing the joke starts to wear thin on the third hearing. So what does this mean for the third Steel Panther album?
Well, you’ll already know what you’re going to get musically: perfect glam-metal stompers lifted straight from the Sunset Strip circa 1985, with the ludicrous levels ramped up to 110 per cent. But the question is: can Steel Panther deliver the ‘megalolz’ now we’re all aware the punchline is coming?
Sadly, they can’t. You can telegraph the lyrical content to songs like She’s On The Rag and Bukakke Tears before you’ve even heard them. The whole bawdy ‘Oooh matron!’ shtick has been stretched to breaking point further than one of the Panther’s earliest groupies. Luckily they truly are an excellent group of musicians and the chorus to B.V.S. and the guitar riff to Pussywhipped are good enough to delight your average arena rock fan.
Lesser bands would be long forgotten by now with this approach. Luckily for Steel Panther, they’re still better than all their peers.
