Faster Pussycat

Front Row For The Donkey Show (Full Effect)
by Martin Popoff

Toronto rarely gets the hair, so it was cool to actually witness the Faster disaster sleazers in concert a few days before writing up a review for a live album. Package experienced, and package relished, with mustard. Seriously, OK, Faster Pussycat is down to one original member, but what a member, in the leathered-up and almost corpse-painted, extended of girth, vague Nazi-lookin’ Taime Downe, the glam manship navigating his stage, cigarette in hand, immobile, deadpanned, but then sly-smiling that it’s all good rock ‘n’ roll fun, sweetie. With a crack band behind him (two lurches and two happy, humpy roadie types), the sum total is a powerhouse of solid sleaze metal, blessed to be working a rich enough catalogue, simple and slamming, highlight being the smartly structured title track from the band’s surprisingly good ’06 studio album, The Power & The Glory Hole. Elsewhere the Gunners-meets-Hanoi Rocks gutbutter anthems flow, with an ill-advised drop into Taime’s industrial hobby. “House Of Pain” represents hair metal balladeering at its finest, and a molten, grinding good time is had by all. Don’t succumb jaded to the dissing – see Faster live and bask in this gang’s audacious legitimacy.
(www.fulleffectrecords.com)