MUSIC REVIEW: NASTY REPUTATION – After All It’s Rock ‘N’ Roll

Shane | 17 April 2023 | 1 Reply

MUSIC REVIEW: NASTY REPUTATION – After All It’s Rock ‘N’ Roll
Naked Hollywood Records
2022
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
88%

If I had a time machine the first thing I would do is to go back thirty years and tell my younger self to hot foot it to Scandinavia PRONTO GUSTO! Any region which can consistently produce such uber-cool sleazy punk ’n rock n’ roll MUST be ripe for some good, good times with extra helpings of debauchery, amirite?

I’m older, greyer and far less debauched nowadays, of course, but I still listen to and love Hanoi Rocks, Backyard Babies, Hardcore Superstar, Crashdiet, Vains of Jenna, Crazy Lixx, et al, and if you do as well, then trust me: you’re gonna dig Nasty Reputation.

This is sleazy Scando rock n’F’n roll which lands directly in the mutually inclusive Venn diagram of Glam metal, punk rock, and anti-authoritarian bad attitudes. It’s not new or ground-breaking, but as they say in their own bio, “somewhere along the way this magical thing went out of fashion – Nasty Reputation don’t do fashion, they play rock n’ roll!”

And damn fine rock n’ roll it is. This is the soundtrack to a thousand Friday and Saturday nights out on the town with a thirst for hard liquor and an eye for a suitable partner, preferably for a good time not a long time.

Nasty Reputation have been around for some fifteen years, with a revolving door on the rehearsal room as members came and went in droves, but finally these guys – Tommy Gun, Lars “The Heat” Heetmøller, Billy McBarbie and Cpt Baard By – have stabilised long enough to assemble an actual album.

After All It’s Rock ‘N’ Roll opens with the self-explanatory Slut Machine, a catchy, raucous, good time rocker entirely appropriate for a band who self-proclaim that they were “scoring higher on STDs than SATs”, and it lays down the one and only ground rule: Let’s F’n Rock.

Riot In Hell brings to mind The Ramones if they were more hard rock and less glue sniffing punks, the “Hey! Hey! Hey!” chorus tailor-made for fists to punch the air at a sweaty club gig. Suicide is Johnny Thunders poetry; and the title track is as catchy as chlamydia and would do Hanoi Rocks proud.

Over on side B (because vinyl is the best way to listen, of course), the amps are turned up to Eleven for the Sunset Strip glory days rawk of Wild At Heart and the bloody-nose-punch of Hit On You. The pace flags a little through These Times, which might have been better played a little faster; before Freeride and Hell Outta You ignite a turbo charged drag racer to the finish line.

After All It’s Rock ‘N’ Roll is an eclectic ride – punk music played by hard rockers in parts, hair metal played by punks in others – and contains a couple of small bumps in the road, but overall this is a great record which rewards multiple listens. I’m looking forward to the follow-up.