Album Review: Balls Out by Steel Panther

Crude, rude, filthy, and more infectious than a bad case of herpes--that sums up Balls Out, the new record from Hollywood’s Steel Panther. After their breakout debut album, the self-professed legends of the Sunset Strip return with 14 sex-crazed, drug-fueled, '80s-infused anthems, from the stampeding opener “Supersonic Sex Machine” to the almost poetic “Just Like Tiger Woods” and the spectacularly absurd “It Won’t Suck Itself.” The humor is juvenile, over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek, and in very, very bad taste. The musicianship is noticeably more layered than on their debut album, giving guitarist Satchel room to rip off some killer riffs and wail some face-melting solos.

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Whether or not you’re a fan of Steel Panther’s ridiculously over the top glam metal, you have to appreciate their dedication. For a comedy rock band, they manage to tell a joke with a surprisingly straight face, jamming out sleazy hair metal in a way that is equal parts caricature and homage. With the band's pedigree lying with acts like L.A. Guns and Fight, it’s not really a surprise that Balls Out is such a spot-on tribute to the excess of that bygone era, coming from people who were there to see the rise and fall of the genre from the inside.

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It's heavy. On their 2015 EP ‘Your Kingdom’, Vitja distanced themselves from their former tech-metal sound. With ‘Digital Love’ they continue to blunt their sharp edges, focusing instead on mammoth grooves and anthemic choruses; and sometimes it works.‘SCUM’ does compelling things with nu metal bounce, electronic ambience and sweeping choruses, for example.Elsewhere though, tracks like ‘The Golden Shot’ sound like the Germans are doing a Bring Me The Horizon impression with eight-string guitars and, as a result, striding a less interesting path.

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