The Struts
Pretty Vicious BIG MACHINE
Derby’s ambitious classic rock crew aim for the stars with album number four.
If the company you keep was a measure of success, then The Struts would be on an unstoppable trajectory to the stars. Dave Grohl is an admirer and very vocal supporter. They’ve collaborated with everyone from Kesha to Tom Morello, Def Leppard to Paris Jackson – a cross generational, cross-genre crew of disparate characters if ever there was one.
They’ve supported the Rolling Stones and Guns N’ Roses, and frontman Luke Spiller sang with Queen at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts in LA and London. Yet despite all this and also a reputation for spectacular live shows, their profile outside the rock-scene bubble has never quite matched their promise.
Pretty Vicious could be the album to change all that. Opener Too Good At Raising Hell straddles the line between pop and rock, cherry-picking the best things about both. Epidemically catchy, fearlessly camp and glam, air-punch anthemic and just the right level of daft, it would sit as comfortably alongside the 80s Sunset Strip big players as it would alongside Robbie Williams (another past collaborator) at the height of his Vegasshagging fame.
Brash, then, but that’s not to say it entirely lacks nuance. The title track is clearly inspired by Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game, giving it a shot of adrenaline but retaining its sense of romantic fear and betrayal, all set to a driving classic-rock beat that harks back to the days when MTV played actual music videos. Bad Decisions is a moment of genuine, heartfelt, emotional remorse from the sharp end of the rock’n’roll lifestyle. Rockstar, meanwhile, pays gonzo tribute to Queen in Spiller’s yelps and a pile of layered vocal harmonies. None of it attempts to reinvent the wheel, rather it’s a glitterdusted love letter to the greats that came before them.
The Struts are unapologetic in striving for the big time. Pretty Vicious is a pouting, theatrical stab at fame and all the fabulous opportunities it affords. It’s music harks back to the days when rock’n’roll ruled the world and made its protagonists gods, at least for the hour they spent on stage. And in a world of beige, it’s a splash of kaleidoscopic colour, with absolutely zero allowances for the notion of being cool. This is showing off on a grand scale, and why not?
Whether the world at large falls for their charms remains to be seen – they certainly stick out like a peacock in a flock of chickens on today’s radio landscape – but there’s no doubt that they’ve given it their all this time around.
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Emma Johnston
Dolly Parton
Rockstar BUTTERFLY/BIG MACHINE
Country queen rocks out with McCartney, Halford, Tyler, Jett and a cast of thousands. Thundering over the horizon like a stampeding herd of glittery elephants, Dolly Parton’s fortyninth studio album is a 30-track sprawl of guitar-revving softrock originals, classic cover versions and superstar duets. It is also the 77-year-old Queen Of Country’s most deranged project yet, a towering wedding cake of syrupy excess and Elvisin-Vegas naffness. Seven decades of rock and pop history are mulched together here, from a huge treacle-drenched Let It Be featuring Paul and Ringo, to henparty karaoke versions of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Stairway to Heaven, Purple Rain, We Are The Champions, Free Bird and more.
Applying normal critical standards here seems futile, but it is worth noting that Parton’s tremulous, twangy voice retains its piercing emotional power even at maximum cheese levels. There are some unexpectedly lovely moments too, such as the Parton-penned power ballad My Blue Tears featuring Simon Le Bon’s luminous harmonising.
Rockstar is not unprecedented – Parton previously covered Dylan and Bon Jovi, as well as duetting with Rod Stewart, Neil Young and others. But what other living icon could unite Joan Jett, Sting, Rob Halford, Lizzo, Nikki Sixx, Steven Tyler, Debbie Harry, Stevie Nicks, Elton John and more across a single album like this? Amazingly, Dolly even managed to dodge the obligatory Dave Grohl cameo.
A monumentally hideous, yet strangely glorious album. Some might say it goes up to 11…
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Stephen Dalton
Dokken
Heaven Comes Down
SILVER LINING
Still rokken’ after all these years. Back in the 80s, when bighaired rock bands were selling millions of records, the most dysfunctional of them all was Dokken; the animosity between singer Don Dokken and guitarist George Lynch ran deep. Now, in an echo of that old rivalry, there are simultaneous releases from
Don’s modern version of Dokken and George’s group Lynch Mob (reviewed on p77).
The title of the new Dokken album is a nod to their crunchy 1984 track When Heaven Comes Down, and the band’s classic signature sound is upfront in songs such as Fugitive and Just Like A Rose, with Don’s voice full of character, and guitarist Jon Levin nailing melodic riffs and shredding leads in a remarkably close approximation of Lynch.
The surprise comes with the album’s closer, Santa Fe, a bittersweet acoustic track in which the grizzled Sunset Strip survivor turns existentialist. He’s sung a lot of great songs, but none as meaningful as this one.
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Paul Elliott
The Cadillac Three
The Years Go Fast BIG MACHINE Album number six finds TC3 sounding all-growed up. The Cadillac Three now have clear water between themselves and their first two albums (2012’s Tennessee Mojo and 2016’s Bury Me In My Boots). They began to cut themselves adrift from the hard-drinkin’, southern-rockin’ template on 2017’s Legacy, then, following two albums released in 2020, took a break. The title chosen for their return suggests they’ve reappraised how they want to sound.
and are familiarly framed rockers in their ‘country fuzz’ style, but elsewhere things have changed. has an almost new-wave feel, has them exhibits shades of Tears For Fears. Jaren Johnston’s accented voice maintains contact with their older work, but these lyrics speak more about loss and heartache than about hellraising. Clearly, he hasn’t written 10 country number ones for others by being a one-trick pony.
