Steel Panther : " Lower the Bar"

Hair metal ...cock rock or whatever you want to call the metal from the 80's that held a glam tinge and packed arenas, is what Steel Panther is.
These guys are more of a parody, but in the process make some good music by mistake. It opens with a some what subtle ode to anal sex. There have more similarities of Bon Jovi  and Van Halen's more metal moments than anyone else. While they are a parody of the big hair school of metal I listened to in adolescent they are still clever song writers. The lyrics to "Anything Goes" are funny, but I am not sure this is the same level of songwriting that they show on the first song. The chorus is like "Cherry Pie" ,which is admittedly a more main stream take on the genre than I was into back in the day, but in this context it works better than say the Darkness. Lyrics seem to be the main hook of this album, because if you put the lyrics to "I Remember You" to "Thats When You Came In"  it would not be the same.

"Wrong Side of the Tracks" is lyrically not much different from Faster Pussycat did on a regular basis. The melody and verse riff to this one is better than everything so far except for the first song so they can be semi-serious as needed. There is a more surreal grunge like filter on "Now the Fun Starts". Thus far it takes itself a little more seriously and might be one of the album's strongest songs as it deviates away from your typical cock rock. We back to more humorous tone on the grittier "Pussy Ain't Free". Which is as serious as a song like that can be. There is more of power-ballad like tone to "Wasted Too Much Time" . The big chorus of "I wasted too much time  fucking you" is catchy enough and keeps me from thinking of it as filler.

There is more of an upbeat "Fair Warning" era Van Halen feel to " I Got What You Want". The chorus reminds me more of Ratt. There is a more of "Ice Cream Man" meets Guns N roses vibe to "Walk of Shame" which is the first song that hit me as filler so far. "She's Tight" feels like their take on "Talk Dirty to Me". The chorus reminds me of Cheap Trick. There are also a couple of bonus tracks which are pretty decent , but for the purpose of this review we are sticking to the basic album tracks. I'll give this one an 8.5, it's pretty decent for a parody.

9.4