Balls Out - Steel Panther Album Review

Steel Panther

Album Review

"It is the future - year 6969". Welcome to the deliciously debauched second album from hair metal parodists Steel Panther. Wearing make up and enough hairspray to obliterate the ozone layer the Panther's habituate a never-ending 80's party on LA's sunset strip where sex, drugs and rock and roll are religious rituals for depraved hedonists with beating hearts and throbbing groins. Boasting the greatest album art since Spinal Tap's 'Smell the Glove', it's exhilarating to know they haven't matured since the perverted porn pantomime of 2009's debut 'Feel the Steel'. It's lewd, crude, irreverently rude and all the better for it.

Successful parodists have a deep affinity for their subject and Steel Panther are enthralled by eighties glam metal via Motley Crue and Def Leppard, effortlessly recreating that sound as adrenalized guitars hammer out crunching riffs with cocaine fuelled intensity whilst plank spanking solos shred away as if Grunge were merely a drug induced nightmare courtesy of Dr Feelgood. It's a wonderful reminder of those halcyon days when rock music filled stadiums and attracted groupies like a horny moth to a phallic flame. However, what makes SP unique are sexually satirical lyrics narrating the true intentions of studs, sluts and celebrities, slighting everyone from Chris Brown to baby faced butt monkey Justin Bieber. Vulgar masculinity is exposed with biting accuracy - particularly on 'Just Like Tiger Woods', a hilarious onslaught of golf based innuendos like 'three holes are better than a hole in one'. Subversive sexual anthems abound with '17 Girls In A Row' (not to do with seating allocation), 'It Won't Suck Itself' (not to do with lollipops) and 'Let Me Cum In' (not a typo). Their attitude towards women is controversial with ''That's What Girls Are For' liable to inspire bra based pyromania in even the mellowest feminist. But beyond the obscenities they're satirising male attitudes rather than baiting females with tongues stuck firmly in their own cheeks (as opposed to where they stick them in their lyrics....).

If you like hard rockin' sleaze and believe political correctness is the modern day equivalent of the Third Reich this is an essential purchase. If your name's Germaine Greer - steer clear. Although Steel Panther would probably ******* **** her before ******* all over her ******* face. The old romantics.

Simon Ramsay