Every single girl I see struttin’ down the street is shakin’ her skinny shoulders like an oasis here in this scorching heat, calling me on, begging me to play. It’s steaming flesh everywhere I look, my friends, and pretty soon the dark shades and slinky shoes are tossed aside as the whole lot of them tight-teed teens start making their own waves. It’s a bitchin’ thing, believe me. And scenes like this don’t usually play themselves out without some sort of seasonal soundtrack courtesy of one of rock n’ roll’s IT bands, like The Stooges, Guns N’ Roses, Buckcherry, or the motherfuckin’ Sex Slaves! It’s a hell of thing to be an IT band, especially in the proverbial pecking order we’ve etched out here in sleaze land, because the bottom line is, you have to do everything right, while still maintaining a strong aura of wrong. Of course, that’s exactly what the Sex Slaves do here with their sophomore album, Bite Your Tongue.

We’re talking sex appeal, gutter charm, a handful of whoa-ohs, stumbling bass lines, beautiful breakdowns, honky tonk hooks, and an all-out infectious and bombastic album of purely delicious sleaze-pop songs. It’s pink and gooey and bursting with disease, and once you’ve had a taste, you’ll be on your knees begging for more. The Sex Slaves are the swaggering kings of cock n’ roll, street walking cheetahs who are more polished than The Forgotten Four but more punk than The Retreads, who’ve got more testosterone than The Weekend but more sugar than The Black Halos. They cover it all with their 12 songs, from partying (“We’re Goin’ Out Tonight” and “Me & My Friends”) to fucking (“All Night Long”, “See You Naked”, and “2 AM”) to chicks (“Contagious”, “One More Night”, “Writing on the Wall”, and “Miss Jones”). There’s also the best cover for “Search & Destroy” I’ve ever heard, a slinky power ballad (“Kiss Me”), and “Thank God for Jack Daniels”, which is perhaps the most brilliantly shameless sell-out of a song, like, ever written. These guys are so smart that they’ll never have to pay for another drink again, because when they tear this baby out on stage at some seedy, steel town dive, and Eric 13 turns his big brown eyes on the crowd and croons, “the only thing better than Jack Daniels, is drinking my Jack Daniels for free!” he’ll have all those same summertime girls I’ve been lusting over runnin’ up to the stage with a handful of shots, a sassy smile, and sweaty thighs. Like I said, it’s a hell of a thing to be an IT band.
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-Jeff Warren