Dead Rebel Society, Blitzkrieg Reviews, Hanoi Rocks, Another Hostile Takeover, Review, Beppo, Reviews

Yeah, Ok… Usually I review metal. Not rock, not hair band shit, not some god awful emo core shit (unless they pay me the big bucks – and they don’t)… Why is this? Because there ain’t no fucking rock anymore, so why the fuck bother? I fucking grew up on great rock and they all let me down. No love for Beppo. I get thrown these hair band comeback albums all the time to review, and I just throw them the fuck back into the ocean. Who cares if Skid Row has a new album out? Is Bach on it? No, then it ain’t fucking Skid Row, is it? “I Remember You II”. I get it… it’s a cruel joke, right? How about Warrant? Or the fifth incarnation of LA Guns? I couldn’t even be bothered to piss on them if they were on fire back in the day on the Strip, they would probably just have tried to suck me off for a place to crash, and now I’m gonna care when they’re fat, bald and play even worse? Maybe you’re one of those who think CC actually played on the Poison albums and that Motley Crue were great musicians? What the fuck do you know about anything, least of all rock? Most of them are bunch of fucking crybaby motherfuckers anyway. A bunch of wash women with pink guitars. Whoppie.

Anyway… One of the bands that kickstarted that whole goddamn awful mess was Hanoi Rocks, and since I didn’t know what the fuck their awesome brilliance would carry in its wake in the shape of shitty ‘80’s bands like Trixter and Firehouse, I loved the fuck out of them back then. Hanoi Rocks was a GREAT fucking band. They were fun and sleazy and still had more rock in their cocks than the whole pathetic hair band scene had on its hardest day after mainlining Viagra for hours on end.

Well, Hanoi Rocks obviously died after the excellent album “Two Steps From the Move”. Shortly after its release the fat bastard Vince Neil decided to take it upon himself to drink and drive and make Razzle, the Hanoi drummer, into a ground meat hood ornament on his borrowed Pantera. Listen, kid… If you’re gonna drink and drive… don’t do it in somebody else's expensive car. And don’t crash. Words of wisdom from me to you. Anyway… Mike Monroe went on to have some sort of sad solo career and Andy McCoy, his wing mate, fell off the face of the earth. After many years (more than you have been on earth) they found each other again at a release party for some shitty Finnish band and decided to try it again. After an OK EP they released the fantastifuckalicious CD “12 Shots On the Rocks” in 2004. It was everything they could ever have fucking hoped to be, better even than most of their old stuff. They had the riffs, the attitudes, and, most of all, they had Monroe rocking out like his cock was dipped in fire ants. It was just fucking excellent and it kinda put all these other motherfucking sad reunion-addled hair band wash-ups in their place. This is how you fucking rock, you fucking tadpole motherfuckers! This is the real McCoy! Andy, that is!

So, after some European and Japanese success, and none in the US because we are fucking stupid over here, they lost their guitar player and bass player. Why? How the fuck do I know? What am I, Beppopedia.com? Anyway, they enlisted the talents of former Electric Boys main man and vocalist Conny Bloom and his bandmate, AC, to fill in on bass. When I first heard that I was dancing a jig. Literally. No shit. Like those Riverdance motherfuckers, up and down the street. Conny Bloom is an excellent songwriter and faded away into nothing ever worth mentioning after EB released “Freewheeling”. Well, there was the time when I saw him pass out like some candy ass motherfucker in a chair at a local tattoo parlor. "It hurts! Uh... I don't... feel so good..." Wham! Anyway... here is his shot at glory again. At least, what glory can be had these days in this cold, hard and bitter rock climate. Did he take the chance? Did he push Hanoi Rocks to even higher clouds in the stratosphere? Did he? Did he? Well, motherfucker, did he?

No.

In all fairness Bloom didn’t get a chance to write any of the songs as most of them were already done, but he adds nothing anyway. This new album by Hanoi Rocks is a huge disappointment. Not only because it took forever to get here after I had Mother Beppo walk up and down the grey slushy streets of Sweden, cursing like a bitch, to look for the fucking album, since it’s only out in Scandinavia and Japan, but also because it mainly fucking sucks.

My hopes were up there on top of the mushroom, dressed like a caterpillar, and someone just squashed them with the big bad boot of reality. Someone call Britney’s boy, Fed-X, cause this fucking album does NOT deliver.

It has more interludes and intros than I will ever care to hear again, for the rest of my life. The songs that are good sound like they were scrapped from the “12 Shots” sessions, and the bad ones are outright fucking horrible. The production is weird as hell too. There is some swooshing, ticking sounds in the first song, “Back in Yer Face”, that I can’t even fucking dream up what they’re supposed to be. “Hurt” sounds like some German rock anthem and “The Devil in You” is some sad Finnish be-bop night club crawler that just fucking sucks. On “Love” they pull out the rock/punk roots and try a little, but it sounds more like Chuck Berry at a wedding, playing “That Thing You Do” from the Hanks movie. “Talk To the Hand”… What the fuck? Are we on Rikki Lake now? The song sucks anyway, so maybe we are. “Eternal Optimist” is more like the old stuff and gets a nod. “No Compromise, No Regrets” is a little tired but works as a filler, I guess. If you’re building a house or digging a grave... Dump it in. And what the fuck is this? “Reggae Rocker”? Say no more. I mean it. What the hell can I say to that? Bob Marley would exhale only and then pass to the right rather than be seen in the same city this song is played. Maybe Monroe was thinking of his old friend, Axl Rose? That motherfucker has all of, what… five dreadlocks on his stupid ass head, right? Is this a tribute to him? Then I fucking hope Hanoi Rocks ain’t gonna be the toast masters at my funeral, cause this fucking blows goats. Even the songs that could have been OK, like “You Make the Earth Move”, the Lynnott cover “Dear Miss Lonely Hearts” (HR was always gay for Lizzy) and “Better High” have a very lame touch to them and Monroe’s vocals sound jaded and passé. “Center of My Universe” is supposed to be this album’s “A Million Miles Away”, but it misses by about 999,999 miles. Just fucking gay.

Out of principle I never comment on Bonus Tracks, so just don’t hold your fucking breaths for those.

All in all, a half-decent all-disappointing album with very few saving graces, considering what they are capable of. If you like the old stuff, check out the 2004 album “12 Shots On the Rock” instead. That was a great album. This is a hit or miss, most of the time, and I only threw “hit” in there because I always loved the band. So is it worth getting? That doesn’t matter since you’ll never fucking find it over here anyway. Just get over it already, or get a Finnish pen pal to send it for you.

Finnish pen pal… That sounds like a blast:

“How was your day, Pekka?”

“Well I was very depressed and struggled not to kill myself so I just got absolutely hammered on cheap vodka instead, to kill the pain, but ended up cutting myself pretty deep with my sexually abusive grandfather’s knife… and you?”

“Cool, whatever, can you send me the new Hanoi Rocks?”

No, it ain’t worth it, kids.

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