DIRTY PENNY – Take It Sleezy

If you’re one of those music fans who doesn’t surf the band pages on MySpace.com regularly or perhaps doesn’t even have a MySpace page, you might not have noticed that “Glam/Sleaze Rock” is trying to make a strong comeback. Plenty of indicators have their needles floating in the red that would predict this is the case. An overwhelming amount of bands denote “Glam” and/or “Sleaze” as their musical genre on their band pages on MySpace.com; Perris Records has several Glam Rock releases currently in the works, the 272 Records label has released Glamnation Vol. 1 (a Metal Express Radio review is forthcoming) with no less than twenty-three bands represented on it! A fair amount of these young upstarts are from the country of Sweden. One, strangely enough, is coming out of the state of California (USA), the very state that was home to a massive slew of 80’s “Hair Metal” bands. If Dirty Penny plays their cards right, they could be at the forefront of this Glam Revolution if the quality of their debut release, Take It Sleezy, is any indication.

Perusing the Take It Sleezy cover will definitely inspire thoughts of Mötley Crüe, minus the leather, and in fact that’s not a completely far-fetched comparison. On Take It Sleezy, Dirty Penny offers up twelve tracks of straight-ahead, basic but fun as Hell, “Shout-riffic, Party Rock!” These boys know how to have fun! Just check out their MySpace.com site name for a hint of their comical nature!

It will be fairly obvious from the opening cowbell sound that their musicianship, while confident, tight and professional, won’t win any “complexity awards,” but with fun-filled tracks like “Midnight Ride,” “Runnin’ Wild,” “Scream & Shout,” and “Vendetta” that inspire the type of aura typically only associated with classic releases like Too Fast For Love, who cares? Singer “Binge Daniels,” whose “name” instills memories of riding the “porcelain bus” after a night full of J.D., sounds confident, a bit like a whinier Vince Neil and seems poised to take on the world. Production, handled by Melodic Rock singer/producer/engineer Johnny Lima, shines in it’s own right. Lima was also involved in some of the songwriting, which perhaps accounts for some of the release’s commercial appeal.

With twelve tracks onboard, there truly isn’t an awful one amongst the bunch. The weakest track is “Black N’ Blue,” which incorporates a little Blues and harmonica into the mix. The track is commendable, but it just doesn’t mesh with the attitude that the remaining songs exude. The band has also refrained from including any typical “ballads,” with the only exception being the acoustic version of “Sleeze Disease,” which is a follow-up to the plugged-in version appearing earlier on this disc. The acoustic version is the last track on the disc, so it can easily be overlooked, but it does in fact come across in a very appealing manner.

Bottom line, it’s nice to come across a release that doesn’t require a musical P.H.D. to listen to and one that provides a lot of entertainment in the form of “F-U-N.” With a successful Rocklahoma 2007 appearance already in the bag, Dirty Penny is destined for bigger and better things, if they can distance themselves from the Mötley Crüe sound and image. Definitely the best Glam/Sleaze release of 2007, especially for an Independent contender! Do yourself a favor and head over to their MySpace sight and grab a copy of this before they are all out!

Lineup

Binge Daniels -Vocals
Jonny Prynce – Guitar
Tyno Vincent – Bass
Spanky Savage – Drums
Johnny Lima – Production, Mix, Engineering