(Dead Teenager) www.deadteenager.net
The last time San Francisco unleashed this kind of thunder on us, Dave Mustaine was still playing lead on "Hit the Lights". I was ready to spread the word about these swagger metal kingpins a year ago, before I even heard a lick of their
sonics, just on a hunch. They blew off my repeated attempts to beat the crowd, but their amazingly named label Dead Teenager finally relented and laid the goods on me, and now I've got the
fuckin' grain alcohol proof. Previously, only two bands on this rotten stinking planet embodied the concept of Super Rock in it's purest form- Cracktorch and the
Lanternjack. It was enough, because it had to be. Well now, we've got us a full blown Super Rock Axis of Evil, as Dirty Power most definitely fit the bill. Curiously, even though they're from the West Coast, and a hippy town at that, DP actually sound like a Boston band. They embody the same air of genre bending macho thunder, the same effortless hellfire boogie and riff tyranny as our own 'Torch, Quitter, and Sinners & Saints. That might not help non-locals, but in global terms, that roughly translates to a relentless, heads-down assault of the MC5, Thin
Lizzy, Soundgarden, KISS, and the Backyard Babies, to name a few. That' s only the tip of the glacier, though. Dirty Power also got soul- albeit damned ones, but still- so even when the licks are brazenly copped from "British Steel", they still feel more like "Mother Popcorn". And the fuckers are so cocky, they could probably take a bullet to the crotch, and still keep dancing. This is the kind of record razor kids form cults over, the kind of record that transcends mere 'release', and becomes 'event', where every song on it is your absolute favorite at some point. (For the record, though, their self-titled theme song, a raunchy, 'AC/DC meets Danko Jones in the fevered brain of Ron Keel' scorcher is the most likely to get you laid.) Now, you might suspect, given tongue in cheek song titles like "Lady
Danzig" and "Luke's Wallpaper", that Dirty Power are fucking around. I assure you, brothers and sisters, that they are not. Dirty Power Respect the
fuckin' Rock. In fact, they may very well be writing a whole new chapter. One that begins in our darkest hour, but ends in a shower of confetti, sex, and total victory. Essential.