VARIOUS ARTISTS
New York City Rock N Roll (Radical)
Reviewed by Alan Wright

---

Compiled and produced by Steven Blush, he the author of the interesting but error-plagued "American Hardcore" book. Attempting to be a cross-section of up 'n' coming New York talent, this runs the gamut from sorta good to absolutely terrible. Many of the bands tend to fall on the more metal side of things, and the overly slick production on much of it doesn't help matters much. There is an overall element of sleaziness to much of the stuff on here, and I have to admit getting a chuckle out of SKUM's absurd "Big Black Cock," but the uber-macho posturing of bands like the Sex Slaves is just plain embarrassing. There are some pretty good cuts from Queen 5, Detox Darlings, Apocalypstick and Pretty Suicide. Still, much of the rest of this falls into the "mediocre" category, and then there is really terrible MTV2-style metal from bands like Pisser, Grounded, Nolan Gate and Supervillian. Some bands feature male singers with extremely high falsetto vocals and remind of '80s bands like Poison and Cinderella. I guess I have hard time considering most of this to be "edgy," a claim that both the label and the compiler make.

© 2004 - Alan Wright