Motochrist- Greetings from Bonneville Flats (Heatslick)

My savvy bride Stacey got her copy of this ‘un first, and after about ten seconds of the gas guzzling opener “Hang ‘Em High”, she said, “Now this a Sleazegrinder band”. And good lord, is it ever. Motochrist is half of the famed and fabled and deservedly legendary New York Loose (vox/bassist Danny Nordahl, axeman Marc Diamond), which is reason enough to snatch this up while the steam’s still rising off of it, but even if their collective pedigree didn’t read like some teenage glam chick’s suicide note (other ex’s include the Throbs, Faster Pussycat, the Dwarves, and Stiv Bators’ band), the sheer audacity of calling your band “Motochrist” would place ‘em in the highest echelon of brass-balled rock and roll bands. Plus, they dress cool. Plus, Marc Diamond has fucked every chick in LA, and everyone of ‘em has a boyfriend who’s planning on kicking his ass. And all this is before the fuckin’ record even starts.

I dunno, I am drawn to mixing band names here, in a vain attempt at nailing what this absolute motherfucker of a record sounds like. How ‘bout Circus of Loose? New York Power? Motorcycle Brats? Faster Hangmen? Gunfire Junkyard? Iggy and the Horseheads? Fuck it, man, just think flash metal muscle and dirty-ass sleaze punk and mascara and whiskey and fistfights and car crashes and arena rock riots and an endless blur of the greatest Saturday nights of your life all roaring down the devil’s highway forty miles over the speed limit. Think of an evil Cult, or Guns and Roses with an even meaner streak. Think of Buckcherry if they really were the bad asses they played on TV. That’s what’s going on in the swaggering, mountain-sized grooves of “Greetings from Bonneville Flats”. And more than a mere chest thumping roar, there’s honest-to-god songs here, things of hook and catch, memorable odes to the rock and the roll with riffs that will melt into your skull like a circuit breaker, ready to switch you back on whenever your juices run low. I swear, any one of these tracks could light up the night sky like a rocket, but if you want specifics, try on the white trash chugathon of “6 Shooters, 6 Strings, and 6 Packs”, or the epic pop metal crunch of “Real Fast Car” or the vicious motorpunk swagger of “Supersonic Speed Machine”. Then there’s the mega-amped, headbanging cover of the Ramones' “Something to Do” and the authentic shitkicking country croon of drunken closer “Three Sheets to the Wind”, and…well, I gotta leave a couple of surprises for you, don’t I?

Listen, it’s been a great 11 months of rock and roll and there’s still 30 days to go, but I think it’s safe to say that “Greetings” is it, baby, the best rock and roll album of the year. If you gotta choose between buying this record or eating for the next few days, then steal a fuckin’ steak or go hungry, because this is the one that’s gonna take you higher than you’ve ever been before. Behold the New Messiahs, brothers and sisters. Motochrist are gonna save us all.