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Bulletboys

Warner Brothers, 1993

http://www.bulletboysofficial.com

REVIEW BY: Pete Crigler

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 02/04/2015

By 1993, hair metal was pretty much dead and buried, killed off by the likes of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana. But several bands were still out there trying to survive. One of these such groups was the Bulletboys. Best known for hits like “Smooth Up In Ya” and the obnoxious and sophomoric “Hard As A Rock,” the band was struggling after their sophomore album tanked. Returning to the studio with producer Ted Templeman, the band attempted to try some new things, probably figuring it would be their last chance to make a major label record.my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

The first single “When Pigs Fly” is a hell of a departure for the band. Gone were the sexual overtones and Marq Torien’s uniquely high falsetto. Here was a hair metal band sounding a little grungy and managing to pull it off. The song is insanely catchy and one of the band’s most well-written numbers.

Two throwaways, “Slow And Easy” and “The Rising,” are here to lengthen the disc and nothing else. “Sing A Song” is a ballad but with a twist; the instrumentation is different than most other bands and more adventurous, but it doesn’t help the song rise out of mediocrity.

“1-800-Goodbye” sounds like Bulletboys of old but the song sounds incredibly dated, even by 1993 standards. The damn thing just doesn’t work and feels out of place. “The Show” has more of that grungy sound that all the kids just loved in 1993, but the refrain of “Baby, you’re an icon, baby, you’re a hard-on” sounds so clichéd and forced. This was once a band that was heavily compared to Roth-era Van Halen, but by this record, those days were looooooong gone.

“Laughing With The Dead” is not a terrible song. It’s got a very catchy chorus and is one of the better-written songs on the record. The intro to “Fess” is a very interesting sample lifted from the late, great pianist James Booker. Unfortunately, that’s the best thing about this unmemorable song.

As expected, this album tanked, failed to chart and the band was dropped the next year. They also lost their manager and their producer as well as their guitarist and drummer. The next twenty years were not very kind to the Bulletboys, but they’re still around and this was a fitting epitaph to their major label years and to hair metal in general.

Rating: C

User Rating: Not Yet Rated


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