Album Review: Killer Hearts - "Skintight Electric"

 

Barrelling out of Houston like some leather clad eight legged scuzz machine, the fact that the Killer Hearts look like the sort of truly evil ne'er-do-wells who usually make the best sort of rock 'n' roll on the cover of this album was a promising start. However, there's been quite a glut of bands sounding like this landing on the Nite Songs review desk in recent weeks and the pressure's on for them to deliver in the face of the increased competition.

So do they? Well, almost. The main influence here is definitely the Dead Boys with the Stiv-indebted vocals and switchblade guitars marking out pretty clearly where the Killer Hearts' influences lie on songs like Get Some and Savage Heathen. There's a bit of a tip of the hat towards underrated '80s LA scuzzballs the Joneses in places as where. The trouble is that while other bands of this ilk we've reviewed of late like the Chuck Norris Experiment, the Bitch Queens and the Poison Boys have all been able to raise their game a bit by chucking in the odd curveball to the formula or just packing in tunes and hooks that grab you round the throat and refuse to let go, these guys aren't quite of the same quality unfortunately. They're a solid band rather than a spectacular one - there's plenty of decent musicianship and snotty attitude here but they just don't really vary things up enough to really make Skintight Electric bear up to repeated listening. Certainly by the mid-section of the album, the tunes definitely start to meld into each other a bit despite some great titles like Midnight Lucifer and Good Time Motherfucker. The chugging riff of 24/7 Action and the freewheeling Buried In Leather make a valiant last ditch effort to turn things around but come just that bit late to elevate this one up into being a great album rather than just a quite good one.

A reasonable effort then (I mean, it takes a special kind of ineptitude to make a truly bad album when you're dealing with influences as good as these) and there's plenty of potential for them to properly nail it next time out but unfortunately the Killer Hearts just don't quite have the chops to get into the premier league of glam punk just yet making this more one for devotees of the genre than casual listeners. But there's nothing to suggest they won't get there eventually with a bit of refinement.

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌓🌓🌓🌓🌓🌓🌑🌑🌑🌑 (6/10)

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