Album Review: Edweena Banger - "Diamond Rocks"

 

Former singer with Ed Banger & The Nosebleeds and Slaughter & The Dogs, Edweena Banger's story is certainly a fascinating one. After being one of the early doors Manchester punks with the two aforementioned, the 1990s saw Edweena embracing her trans identity and Diamond Rocks is the second in a series of albums from her following the story of a trans escort who rises to stardom on the rock circuit by fronting a glam rock band in true Ziggy Stardust style and certainly the influence of Bowie hangs heavy over this album.

Interestingly, opening track Rock And Roll Land sounds more like the late era pub rock of Eddie & The Hot Rods than anything with its chugging riff and shoutalong chorus before Give It Up For Johnny, as the name suggests, being a Dolls-indebted tribute to Mr Thunders. Likewise, the title track tips its lyrical hat to everyone from Bowie to Thin Lizzy over swirling keys and chugging guitars to good effect and the piano led Where Did It All Go Wrong? goes into floaty Moonage Daydream territory while Aladinsane Again is pretty much self-explanatory. It's not just the Duke though - Boogie In The Well Of Love is pure T-Rex and there's even a bit of a Beatles influence creeping in there on Love Is Great which works better than it really has any right to.

The only slight drawback with this album is that the production's a bit flat and it leaves some of the songs sounding more like demos than the finished article. Which is a bit of a shame because the tunes most definitely are there and you suspect that if someone was to take a chance and give Edweena the recording budget she deserves to make a proper all singing all dancing glam opera extravaganza that Diamond Rocks clearly aspires to be then we'd have something genuinely special on our hands.

A bit of a rough cut diamond here then but the quality of these tunes means that this album is still very much deserving of your attention. Get past those technical gremlins and what you've got here is a good '70s inspired glam rock album with a smattering of punk and new wave stylings in there to keep things interesting. Not bad at all.

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NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)

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