That “difficult second album” is something significant…
Review by Brian McGowan
Release date: 7 August 2015
Thanks to a band name and an album title that conspired against received rock’n’roll wisdom, little was expected of this band’s debut, Here Come The Prostitutes (2012). But it confounded us all. Being the recognised arbiter of good taste, we gave it 8 out 10, saying that the band’s music had “a marvellous, ragged edged pop majesty”. Even Classic Rock magazine shared our opinion. The follow up, Glorified, is a harder, heavier beast. These freshly minted recordings are muscled and sweaty, masking the tuneful sweetness at their core. Hulking bruisers like ‘Farewell’ and ‘Prima Donna’ emerge from the shadows with fists swinging, only to embrace you with such passion and tenderness that their emotional hold is hard to resist.
Frontman Fussy Korsholm’s voice is as rough as a badger’s arse, but is surprisingly fluid. A combination that makes it the perfect vehicle for songs like the riffy, raucous ‘Red Car’, a melodic, driving and slightly ominous track that creates an underlying sense of menace, betraying its garage rock roots…probably the album’s most accessible track. ‘City Lights’ and ‘Suicide Girl’ reveal a love of the Backyard Babies and Imperial State Electric, two guitar fuelled bands who throw a clanging cloak of modernity over Britpop influences, further adding a trashy, glamrock stomp to ‘All Mine’ and a wry, off key smile to the witty, lightly polished ‘Running With Scissors’.
Elsewhere, ‘Dead By Rock’n’Roll’s slick, stream of consciousness lyrics seem cheesy and cliched at first, but transform convincingly into a catchy, insightful reflection of the rock’n’roll lifestyle. And ‘Leech’, energised by the spit and snarl of the unloved and disenfranchised, puts the band shoulder to shoulder with similarly motivated fellow travellers, Crash Diet.
That said, they save the best till last. ‘Such A Bliss’ neatly and compellingly filters undiluted gothic melancholy through the prism of contemporary hard rock. Like an imaginative mashup of The Poets Of The Fall and The Cult. It hardly closes the album on an unavoidable rush of optimism, but surprisingly suggests yet another string to this band’s many faceted bow. No question, St. Prostitute have made that “difficult second album” into something significant.
9 out of 10
Track listing:
- Farewell & Goodbye
- Red Car
- City Lights
- All Mine
- LA Party
- Dead By Rock’n’Roll
- Running With Scissors
- Suicide Girl
- Leech
- Prima Donna
- Scream
- Such A Bliss
