Album Review: Stevie R Pearce & The Hooligans - "Major League Son Of A Bitch"

 

Some albums, the cover and title are enough of a clue as to what you're getting. And as if the title to Major League Son Of A Bitch wasn't a clue enough, the cover pic of four old school rockers who look like they've been dragged out of the dingiest backstreet metal club imaginable one of whom is about to swing a guitar at your head while chomping on a cigar had me anticipating an album of scummy nasty full throttle scuzz-rock in the best Motörhead/Zodiac Mindwarp/Four Horsemen style.

Was I right? Erm, sort of. Stevie R Pearce and the Hooligans are one of those bands whose name I've heard without really running into any of their music (a couple of them have served time with Love/Hate and Warrior Soul in the past) but to be fair this album gets off to an absolute stormer with the pummelling riffs and barrelling aggression on Rip It Out and I'm On Fire reminding me of Slave To The Grind era Skid Row albeit thankfully without Sebastian Bach's screeching histrionics. Although the title track makes a slight mis-step by trying to drop the pace to a mid-tempo chug which doesn't really mesh very well with the scowled vocals, the Dangerous Toys soundalike How High and the ZZ Top meets the Almighty title track drag it back on course and it all looks pretty peachy.

Unfortunately, straight away afterwards, Major League Son Of A Bitch stumbles off into the fog without a compass and never really recovers. When you've done a pretty good job thus far of portraying yourselves as bourbon swilling Harley riding knuckleduster wielding badasses, the last thing you want to do is suddenly chuck in a couple of wimpy ballads that sound more like the Little Angels than Lemmy but for reasons best known to themselves, that's exactly what the Hooligans do and If I Were Blind and the string-drenched Just A State Of Mind well and truly derail this album, dragging it down into the AOR swamp. And it heralds the start of a really weak middle section to this record with Information Not Advice being a brave attempt to do an Iron Maiden style five minute epic that unfortunately just doesn't really work and a decidedly ill-advised stab at rap metal on Flesh Wound really making you fear the worst.

They do happily turn things round a bit towards the end with the rampaging Lunatics By The Pool (a distant cousin of the old Stone Gods classic Don't Drink The Water), the chugging riff of Trouble and the quality headbanger Hammered but overall, Major League Son Of A Bitch sounds like a bit of a missed opportunity especially given that four of the first five tracks on this one are absolute stormers. The good intentions are there but next time I think these guys need to say sod it to subtlety and just play to their strengths by going full throttle on the aggro. 

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌓🌓🌓🌓🌓🌓🌑🌑🌑🌑 (6/10)

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