Hollywood are from Baltimore. Hollywood likes those giant shiny letters that spell out ‘Birthday’ so everyone knows it’s your special day. They like heart shaped beds because normal beds are boring and if that bed is covered in shag fabric, it’s for your pleasure. Hollywood lists every track title IN ALL CAPS because they are important and yelling. Hollywood is four guys who play loud fast and hard with a sense of humor because anything else would be completely pretentious.
The opening track, “UP ALL NIGHT” jumps into that huge pop punk sound of thick treble range guitars with an opening anthem, they literally have no choice but to get this off their collective chests. The scratchiest static sound from their guitars with beefy thick fingered chords, palming the whole instrument taking over the track, crashing in waves with macho yelling of vocals back and forth between band members. Hollywood can get away with a completely ridiculous track because they’re playing at such speed, so thoroughly thick and massive it becomes an avalanche of spazzy highs and you’re at the bottom of the hill. Drums and bass take a backseat to this front and center distortion.
"FINGERS REMEMBER” is based in part on blues scales and Dictators goofball '50s sound, parodying that era that was already joking. It switches into a scuzzed up Stray Cats chorus sound where his fingers remember a girl. Gross or nice? You decide.
They slow down to a bass line thump, double up the vocals and scream in some kind of super double chamber so they aren't on the same planet as the rest of this song. Clear and driving with a sort of Clash sound, lots of guitar being the focus here, just never stop playing.
"$PACE JAM" has an almost psych sound of lower gritty thunder on the guitar, scuzzy and dripping. The vocals are slathered with echo and delay sounding now like Rocket from the Crypt with all members yelling together about space travel and aliens. I can’t stress this enough, they want to just rock and Love Child won't let you have anything but a good time. They demand that they buy you beers and introduce you to the friends of their girlfriends. When you go out with Hollywood, you better just forget whatever you had planned for the next day.
“(I PREFER) DRUGS” has a stomp scuzz beat and a sick single note guitar melody about drugs, for some reason reminding me of a hippie punk sound of Jane's Addiction drawing from a classic rock sound and launching it into space with swirly effects. You better believe the vocalist has all kinds of attitude strutting around on these tracks, snarling and belligerent, the first guy to flip over a table at the end or the beginning of the night.
On the flip side of their insert is a monster movie close up of an old poster and I think Hollywood wants to overwhelm and have the same energy, to talk about those ridiculous things like monsters or zombies and ignore conventions. Always blown out, the trio blares through a megaphone. Every kind of distortion must be utilized and if this gets the slightest bit shoegaze Hollywood will kill you with a tiki torch. They want scuzz clipped and chopped up into the hawaiian sunset with a swamp creature eating it up, coming up on the beach to hang out next to the bonfire.
They can't help but have that scuzzy pop bubble sound that turns into something of a dance floor if they didn't rip it out already, they are going to leave a lot in their wake. An acoustic guitar? They know how to play those? They’re attacking those garage '50s pop sounds on "SNAKE BITE" making sure to keep it light as possible with songs about drugs and reptile bites, but then they refuse to let you rest or give you a moment to process this.
"FREE SWIM” saunters along over rolling tom fills like a slow chainsaw busted through a hundred tiny amps. They always go to that next level of girls on the strip and cool cars, they’re just in love with their sound crunching as hard as possible even when it has to do with swimming at that summer camp. You can real hear what a character this lead singer is, completely filling out this hillbilly vibe with a toothless grin and straw in his teeth. How did he get a swimming pool anyways? They save the last track, "HUMAN BBQ PART 2” for a thunder sludge sound about kidnapping kids and war. How'd we get here guys? I guess all that crazy alien weirdness also includes some super demented not nice things that are going to happen to people, like this human BBQ. Out with a bang.
On blood or party balloon red vinyl. You're choice. From Big Neck Records.
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