Heat Slick

(Heat Slick)
by Scott Hefflon

L.A.-style rock, in all its glammy, swaggering glory. The production is less monster cock rock than it used to be, but pre-funded ’80s hair “metal” was, if memory serves (which it doesn’t) often pretty thin. And bar rock, to be honest, is almost always best heard in a bar, being ignored by big tittied bartenders who spill 1/3 of your drink every time they grudgingly serve your drunk ass, not on a CD where, say, The 440’s formulaic “Slut Girl Blues” falls embarrassing far shy of sleaze. But a few of the nü glam bands mimic Dr. Feelgood-era Crüe decently – American Heartbreak, Plan 9 (dark, Too Fast for Love-style; oh, they’re from Sweden, of course they’re top-notch!), Motorchrist, The Hangmen – and bozos who were there the first time (but are sometimes a pleasant guilty pleasure) sober up long enough to kick in a track – Faster Pussycat, The Newlydeads, Junkyard, Pretty Boy Floyd, and there are some other chumps I can’t think of much to say about: City Girls Boys, Nutrajet, The Narcotics, Killingbird, Dragbeat. The Newlydeads (one of their best songs, “Lipstick”) and Plan 9 (who remind me of D.A.D., not that more than three of you know who that is/was, but cheer loud you three!) have by far the best tracks here, but seeing as one’s stripper pseudo-industrial bump’n’grind and the others’re young, tuneful Swedes, there’s still glittering, glimmering hope for glam. (But don’t say that too loud, cuz all the wrong people will “get the band back together.”)
(www.heatslick.com)