CD REVIEW: ARTIFICIAL AGENT – Love Won’t Strangle Me

Shane | 26 March 2014 | Reply

CD REVIEW: ARTIFICIAL AGENT – Love Won’t Strangle Me
Streamline Records
2011
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
7.5/10

Hailing from Michigan, Detroit, Artificial Agent pull together a cheeky sound that owes a debt to Kiss and Alice Cooper, as well as their descendants Motley Crue and Black Veil Brides, whilst also incorporating some less flash influences such as Queens Of The Stone Age and Velvet Revolver, which tempers the glam and sleaze edges into something stronger and with more substance.

Dressed in Evil sees singer Derek Jendza treading down the Scott Wieland road, while How To Be Evil’s cool seventies groove and purr is more Alice Cooper Band.

Despite these different influences, Artificial Agent have successfully created an album that sounds individual enough to set them apart, and it’s that individuality that has led them to support slots for Vince Neil, Eagles Of Death Metal, Warrant, Poison, Ace Frehley, Alice Cooper and Steel Panther.

Elsewhere there is a really interestingly rendered ballad in Breathe The Ashes In, which avoids any and all clichés, the harder rocking Seven, Twenty Or Five, the glam-stomping Pawn by Design, and the similarly intriguing car-crash-breakup-song Hollywood Sign.

Just when you get used to their post-glam-with-a-dash-of-darkness vibe, along comes album closer, a full forced raunch-a-thon called Turbo Slut, which seems almost out of place.

Artificial Agent reference plenty of familiar territory on this record, but manage to have twisted it into a pretty unique experience – one which should see them get some well deserved attention.

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