Along with fellow sozzled Soho scuzzy soiree-ers Last of the Teenage Idols and Buttz's earlier bon vivants The Babysitters the Soho Roses should have had it all at the tail end of the 80's and made a larger than life-size indentation on the 90's musical scene. Should, of course, is a word as big as Soho itself. In this case, as big as Soho and SoHO combined. But they should have had all this. And more. On the floor. AND the floor at yer best mate's wedding. AND made out the door with the swag. Ayuss, and a bridesmaid or two. Alas, unfortunately, as happened with so many Flash Metallers, they never lucked out enough to get the loot or the ladies. Actually I think they may have had those. Luck and loot just weren't on the cards. They were, however, left with lesions and lacerations and are consigned to an elegaic eulogy in the Flash Metal Suicides series courtesy of, erm, me. Ha ha – what better homestead to reside in? 'So Bad They're Good' - Ray Zell, and apparently common consensus. Soho Roses were, and I wasn't present and correct at the time, being eleven or something and half-remembering one Metal Hammer interview*, a pretty much, and unfairly so else I wouldn't be writing this, derided bunch it would seem. I didn't know this till Paul Blittz filled me in on the story that they were unsigned too. And when you think that The Dogs D'Amour were kinda universally dumped on yet got a deal, of sorts at least, we can start to gauge what they were up against. But did they give a fuck? Do ya need to ask? If so, go stand in the corner and think about things a minute or two. I'm sure it'd have been easier and hell, I'm also sure they wouldn't have said no if they could have had a proper stack-heeled stab at stratsopheric sleaze rock glory. Or at least played outside of Soho. Seriously, though, what propels this album along is a totally combined, united front, almost militaristic (Glitter-Clash?) attitude. They BELIEVE this, and it shows. They're having fun as patent as their PVC's, and it SHOWS. That's not half the battle, as trite axioms go, because contrary to it all, they play literally like their very lives depend on it, as though the adrenalin's about to expire and they're slamming out songs that might be sleaze rawk gutter punk but hit you with enough force to shear boils off Lemmy's face from his LA home, and are tight, taut and searingly sharp...the almost nervous energy could sheer through razorwire...yet at the same time enrapturingly rough and tumble. They took the visceral splutter and gut-lurching buzzsaw thrash of tuneful pop-punkers like The Buzzcocks (merrily covering their 'What Do I Get', soaking it in cheap spumante spray) and The Boys, added a few shots of Hanoi Rocks, shook it up with their own twist on classic lovesick lovelorn lyrics from early Dion through to them very Buzzcocks and onto early Dogs D'Amour and slapped down a scattershot masterpiece of majestic squalor and regaled us with regally rough an' ready tales of destruction from the dancefloors, damp, dingy basement flats and dank alleyways of old London town. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.