Stars of the Silverscreen - Bruised for two

On first listen to the new SOTS album I found myself digging out their debut as it was difficult to grasp how much of a jump forward the band had taken.

It’s as if they have gone from mach-speed to light-speed in one small step for man and one large leap for rock kind.

The band that were a robustly strong jetfighter have now become a class-A starfighter The balance between delivering what rock and punk fans would want is Zen like.

No one who has both feet in any genres camp is going to find anything to complain about as they soak up each track on this release, while those who straddle the line will be ecstatically impressed with the sprawling mess of rabid guitar licks, snotty nosed punk attitude and stadium teasing rock and roll that’s on display.

Within its grooves the sound that sprung from the streets of the UK at the dawning of punk has found itself soaking up the vibe of the Sunset Strip and in doing so discovered that it likes Jacuzzis full of jack and strip joints on every corner.

Listen carefully and there are even hints of the NWOBHM flexing its leather encased fist in your face, and for some strange reason it doesn't seem out of place in the mix at all.

Imagine a tornado ripping through a quality record collection and gleefully throwing every slab of vinyl at you and that’s what this feels like.

If you flipped between footage of a crowd of thousands going balls to the wall nuts at a festival with that of Stars of the Silverscreen performing it would be easy to accept that it was the real deal and not just mocked up as this is an album that should be getting played from a stage to thousands.

Download or Sonisphere in the UK need this band, while over in the US Rocklahoma should be kicking their door down and begging them to grace their stage.   

A fist pounding success from start to finish. 

Dirt Box Disco - Legends

As mad as a box of frogs who have participated in too many hallucinogenic drug trials they may be, but Dirt Box Disco are no mere novelty act.

Underneath the greasepaint, and behind the post apocalyptic graphic novel imagery, is a band who can write and delivery material that given half a chance would put the majority of punk and rock media darlings that magazines like Kerrang promote firmly into the shade.

If this was a movie then they're the band playing on the radio as the anti hero barrels down a highway littered with burnt out vehicles as he leaves the ruins of a city in the rear view mirror.

Remember when My Chemical Romance released Danger Days and mixed some Mad Max. Jamie Hewlett and glam trash punk rock together?

Well while most punks wont have a clue what I'm talking about, I was actually very impressed with that, but this might have been the album they were really reaching for.

If that album was the foreplay, but this is the money shot.

'Legends' is Dirt Box Disco channeling the spirit of Turbonegro in a Clockwork Orange bar covering the UK Subs in a suburb of the City of Oz with amps whose lowest setting is eleven........and then they burst into the next song and you're transported somewhere else, somewhere that Twisted Sister are professionally arm wrestling with Sigue Sigue Sputnik as the Ramones look on.

Every song is a phasers set on stun party.

'Legends' indeed.

STP Records

Band Website.

Turbonegro - Sexual Harassment

It's been a long journey with members appearing, disappearing and then reappearing with alarming regularity over the years.

It's rumoured that as part of their rider – above the bit about denim clad midgets, but below the part about everyone having to speak like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean for one hour of every day - they insist that the dressing room doors are removed and replaced with revolving ones just to keep everyone on their toes.

No one is indispensable in the world of the Turbonegro.

There's been madness, drug issues, some cross dressing, huge dollops of crazy rock and roll and cult like adulation along the way, and do you know what?

They still rock like a motherfucker.

A big neon lit nightmare of seventies glam stomp and punk rock motherfuckery.

They're the Rolling Stones, The Ramones, The Dead Boys and the New York Dolls celebrating the apocalypse, and Sexual Harassment is the definitive proof if anyone ever needed it.

The guitars howl, the bass and drums are thunderous and right to the fore is every single politically incorrect thought that has every crossed your mind.

Turbonegro are the glint of switch-blade steel in the dark alley, the leer on the face of the carnival barker, and the money shot at the end of your favourite moment of adult celluloid entertainment all rolled into one.

Remember the promotional comment of 'you pay for the whole seat, but you will only use the edge of it?'

That should have been about Turbonegro.

In the words of Happy-Tom "Most rock 'n' roll bands start as a riot but end up as a parody. We started up as a parody but ended up as a revolution."

Vive le revolution.