Back To Mystery City

About

Finland’s Hanoi Rocks bottled punk rock, pub rock, glam, Chuck Berry, and old pics of Johnny Thunders and David Johansen, added some carbonation, shook the concoction up, and then popped the cork like cheap champagne. It fed a short-lived career that skidded to halt in 1984 when drummer Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley was tragically killed in a car crash. Hanoi Rocks had swayed an entire generation of Hollywood scenesters, from Guns N’ Roses to Poison to Mötley Crüe, who all misinterpreted the band’s riffed-out humor and purposely tarty and cheap Euro-trash aesthetics. This 1983 album (the band’s fourth, produced by ex–Mott the Hopple men Dale Griffin and Overend Watts) soft-shoes in on the self-mocking “Strange Boys Play Weird Opening” (chirping birds, folksy guitars, Irish flute, natch!), which segues into the frighteningly prognostic anthem “Malibu Beach Nightmare.” The rest dives gloriously into odes to speed (“Mental Beat”), a ratty London existence (“Toting Brec Wreck”), masturbation (“Beating Gets Faster”), and pending band fame (“Back to Mystery City,” a poppy riff-fest loaded with New York Dolls nods and Tommy James cops).

via Apple Music