Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate – Hell, CA
Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate – Hell, CA
Golden Robot Records
Release Date: 11/03/22
Running Time: 41:00
Review by Richard Iggo
8/10
Love/Hate were the Silver Surfer to Nirvana’s Galactus; heralds of the end of 80’s glam and sleaze. Not that it was their decision or intent to be so – I think – but that’s just the way things worked out. At least in my head.
This band showed up and the next thing I knew, everyone was wearing their grandad’s cardigan, smelling like teen spirit. I was suspicious of this group of LA stoners. They looked like a beaten-up INXS dressed in the contents of the lost and found bag from a heavy metal jumble sale. They had funny album art, played bagpipes, and danced like five year old kids high on birthday cake. Everything about them was odd in comparison to the LA bands they were lumped in with at the time.
Upon its release, I thought 1990’s “Black Out in the Red Room” was ‘OK’. The title track and ‘Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?’ were rock club dancefloor hits, but this band just didn’t hook me. Why? Not sure, but I suspect it had something to do with the way they looked, which of course shouldn’t matter, but it did. In hindsight, it’s a very good debut. It offered far better musicianship than the majority of the tired clones being pushed out in pursuit of the next hit from the Sunset Strip.
If you haven’t listened to “Black Out in the Red Room” for some time (or ever), it’s well worth a spin. I was surprised how much I liked it after a long absence from my ears. It falls apart lyrically here and there with some questionable choices, notably those of ‘Rock Queen’. To this day, I don’t know if that song was satire or not.
I didn’t listen to the follow up album “Wasted in America” (1992) and after that, I lost track of the band as the rock music world went through a paradigm shift. On the strength of “Hell, CA,” though, it might be worth my time to peruse the Love/Hate back catalogue, or at least check out Jizzy’s work elsewhere.
In addition to Love/Hate, Jizzy has provided vocals for bands including Ratt and LA Guns, and still does for Quiet Riot, and there’s a reason for that. He’s good. As are his Love/Hate bandmates. There’s some excellent musicianship here – it’s tight, and oozes assured confidence.
Opener ‘One Hot Minute’ sets the scene by making you want to drive at irresponsible speeds at the wheel of a custom hotrod, before relentlessly pressing into the groove of ‘Acid Babe’. The deceptive opening acoustic guitar of ‘Gonna Take You Higher’ tricks you into thinking you can relax and then ‘Soul Mama’ delivers something that could have easily been written by The Cult. It’s not hard to imagine Ian Astbury singing this song somewhere in time between “Electric” and “Sonic Temple”.
‘Hard to say Goodbye’ is held together by a looping riff that’s at odds with the subject of the lyrics, where Jizzy seems to mourn the loss of a friend. It’s probably one of the weaker tracks on the record for me, but is still eminently listenable.
It’s worth taking a moment here to focus on the album’s guitar work. It is absolutely…appropriate. Stick that thrilling quote on your album cover!
Describing guitar on a rock music record as ‘appropriate’ might not seem like a positive, but it’s actually something that’s really important to the quality of this album. It’s a consummate exercise in self-restraint with no unnecessary fretwork, just stomping, crunching, wailing goodness, exactly as it should be, precisely when needed.
‘When You Gonna Come Home’ struts a heavy Black Crowes blues riff leading into ‘Last Chance’, before you’re hit smack in the face by ‘Bruised and Battered’. This song is a cocky, swaggering, lip-curling blast of nostalgia that’s also fresh as fuck. It’s a slithering sleaze fest, dripping attitude and is just begging for a dirty black & white promo video featuring broken neon, shattered glass, and lipstick on a mirror.
‘Wanna Be Somebody’ has Jizzy channeling James Brown, as he demands that we’re taken to the bridge, in a mashup of Zeppelin influenced riffery and drums. Finally, the closing track ‘Lonely Days Are Gone’, sounds like it should run over the end credits of an HBO crime thriller. It has something about it that reminds me of Alabama 3’s ‘Woke Up this Morning’ from The Sopranos, although the songs are nothing alike – it’s just a vibe.
This album has really surprised me and is one that I can unreservedly recommend. For a band I thought were the heralds of the doom for a musical genre, they turned out to be keeping it very much alive.
‘Bruised and Battered’ Official Audio:
TRACKLISTING:
01. One Hot Minute
02. Acid Babe
03. Gonna Take You Higher
04. Soul Mama
05. Hard to Say Goodbye
06. When You Gonna Come Home
07. Last Chance
08. Bruised and Battered
09. Wanna Be Somebody
10. Lonely Days are Gone
LINE-UP:
Jizzy Pearl – Vocals
[[Not 100% certain about the following. Hard to get accurate info here…]]
Stevie Pearce – Guitars
Christian Kimmett – Bass
Charles Evans – Drums
LINKS:
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