Sleazy does it!
There must be something in the water in Sweden that helps produce some quality Sleaze/Rock bands, and I could rattle off a whole list of them on these pages, and totally go off on one, but I won’t. However Nasty Idols are a band that have somehow managed to fall under my radar, until now that is. It’s even more surprising as the band have been around since this genre was at it’s peak. Their first album was in 1989 which was a time when the likes of Poison, Areosmith, Whitesnake, Motley Crue, Britney Foxx, Faster Pussycat and many, many more, were churning out hits. Their brand of Sleaze/Glam/Rock can be likened to Pretty Boy Floyd and (the not so famous) Alleycat Scratch.
Like most of the bands of the time and genre, Nasty Idols had great success on their debut album, ‘Gigolos On Parole’, and their follow up album, 1990’s ‘Cruel Intentions’, spawning some popular music videos on MTV for, ‘Cool Way Of Living’, ‘Can’t Get Ya’ Off Of My Mind’ and ‘Trashed N’ Dirty’. Then whilst other bands in their genre were falling by the wayside and being quite ceremoniously dropped by their record labels, Nasty Idols fought Grunge in 1993 with their third album, ‘Vicious’, which had two singles, and was slightly heavier in it’s feel, before they too were victims of the musical change right as their fourth album, ‘Heroes For Sale’ was released in 1994.
So whilst it’s not a new thing to see these Glam bands reforming for reunion tours and releasing new (and slightly below par) albums, with this the band’s fifth long-awaited album, ‘Boys Town’ we have a fantastic come back album. Starting with chugging Crue-like guitars and police sirens we have a more razorblade rock that drips Sleaze off of every word in opener, ‘Rock Out’. Then in the album title track, ‘Boys Town’ we have a head-banging anthem of a song that harps back to the early nineties like they had never left and the world hadn’t decided that it smelt of teen spirit everywhere…
The cover of Lords Of The New Church song ‘Method To My Madness’ has an addictive drum beat that can excite the dead, and it’s a real corker of a rock anthem. Whilst next in, ‘Scar For Life’ we have a more thoughtful and complex song that twists and turns like a rattlesnake, with a rhythm and bite of large riffs that will keep you coming back for more. ‘Nite Like This’ is an up-tempo ballad that has gentle guitars in the verse and a big chorus that has complimentary keyboard chords. Then we have the slightly more Faster Pussycat-esque fast Sleaze of ‘Crashlanding’, that is like a hyperactive love child in it’s darkest hour.
‘48 Hours’ is a little like Quiet Riot and could’ve been in the soundtrack to any 80’s film, and on ‘7 Year Itch’ we go a little Gun’s ‘N’Roses with Andy Pearce’s vocals having a nice Axl sneer to them. It’s a swaggering Sleaze song that throws it’s balls in your face then turns it’s back on you when you try to complain. The pace quickens up in the machine gun beat of ‘Evil One’, whilst the addition of a cow bell always rocks my world on, ‘It’s Not Love’, that has a beat that I would roll over a bed of thistles naked to hear again. It’s a fist-punching, high-octane killer of a song. That takes us to the slight Sleaze-Punk of ‘Need The Nite’, that will have you singing along in your sleep too. The closing song is a stretched out slow ballad of, ‘It Ain’t Easy’ that goes on for a whopping six-minutes. It’s a good song, but I’ve never been a fan of long slow songs…
So to conclude, currently Glam does seem to be having a mini-revival, and aside from the number of bands that have reformed and re-released albums, there are other bands like Sound And Fury and Stick It Out to name a couple, that are bringing out good quality albums (and Backyard Babies have a strange story of starting when Grunge killed Sleaze, and have got better and better). ‘Boys Town’ is the best album from any of the Old Skool Glam Rockers that have had a new album out in the last five or six years, which is good, but what is great is that along with a lot of the albums in the 1990’s this stands up against those too. Yes, I have a weakness for this type of music, but I’ve also listened to a lot of it. So whilst bands like Dangerous Toys, Warrant, Tesla, Poison, Slaughter, Faster Pussycat, Pretty Boy Floyd and so on have all released mediocre albums after their peak, I can certainly say that Nasty Idols have their eyes on the prize, with the sweetest cherry pie album for a long Sleazing time!