Back in April I caught up with POA main-man Lesli Sanders in the US just after he and his band had done double duty supporting Pretty Boy Floyd and playing with them. I must admit that I was far more impressed by the sounds of the Prophets than by PBF with their heart on the sleeve rocked out, sleazed-up mash of The Ramones and The Dogs D’Amour – two bands I particularly love. I thought at the time I had been handed a copy of this very album then but it wasn’t until after I received the promo version that I was sure, and sure enough 9 months later I saw it misfiled in a stack of CDs under ‘R’. Still it’s here now and I still have a couple more months till it hits the streets.
If you were ticking the ‘what makes great rock and roll’ boxes then on my scorecard Prophets Of Addiction uses up a lot of ink – it is almost as if The Sunset Strip DNA has been blended with the finest strains from the East Coast (The Ramones, the Dead Boys); the UK (Lords of the New Church, Kill City Dragons, The Dogs D’Amour) and Scandinavia (Hanoi Rocks, Backyard Babies) and topped up with vodka.
Musically it’s of course not quite that simple as ‘Reunite the Sinners’ (released by Mighty Music on the 15th of April) has more than a few twists and turns including a cameo by Poison guitarist C.C. DeVille on the track ‘Kings and Queens’.
After the critical praise for debut ‘Babylon Boulevard’ and tours of Europe, Australia, and the USA it was always going to be a hard task to follow but you know what? The more you listen the more you think they’ve managed to pull it off.
‘As we Fall’ is a sure-footed opener as you could want and sees Lesli croon Tyla-esque over an almost poppy uplifting melody that comes across as the meeting of Lords of the New Church and The Dogs D’Amour. It’s a damned fine song as are the grungier menace of ‘Welcome to the Show’ and the title track which up the punkier and darker aspects of the band respectively to great effect.
‘Kings and Queen’ featuring CC DeVille has some nice orchestration and initially sounds oddly like pre-Ziggy Bowie before bursting forth, it’s a different kind of step for the band – a blown out mini-epic that takes a few listens but gets there. Tracks like ‘Razor’s Edge’; ‘Spare the Bullets’ and ‘Last of the Words’ (an insanely catchy tune) have that barroom rock and swagger that The Dogs got from The Faces and The Prophets nicely appropriate for themselves to great effect. Elsewhere tracks like ‘Heart of Mine’ almost appear to be channeling bands like Sisters of Mercy but with a Sleazy edge; whilst ‘Postcards from the Grave’ has an edge like one of my favourite East Coast rebel-rousers The Erotics. As way of contrsat the acoustic closer ‘Exist’ is also a nice touch.
There’s a definite place in any dirty rock collection for The Prophets.
