Pleasure Club's big, bad rock

Pleasure Club - The Fugitive Kind
(Purified Records)
4 stars (out of 5 stars)
Reviewed: June 24, 2004

Review by Tony Bonyata

Two of the bandmembers may call New Orleans home, but you're not likely to find any jazz, blues or street funk second-lining through Pleasure Club's sophomore album The Fugitive Kind.
Instead what this gritty rock quartet has offered up is a delicious platter filled with scuzzed-up guitars, gargantuan glam riffs, raunchy bump-and-grind rhythms and crazed vocals from New Orleanian James Hall.
From the dirty guitar-line that crawls from the gutter and howls and slashes over Hall's blood-curdling pleas on the opening track "Hey! Hey! Hey!" to a dead-nuts update of Mott The Hoople's swaggering glam bravado on "Streetwalkers Anthem" and "Cops and Criminals" these guys have somehow managed to tap into the pure excitement of true rock 'n' roll. Even when they throw in a cheesy '80s beat over an angular rhythm guitar that is more than reminiscent of INXS, or when they sound like Iggy Pop learning how to Mariachi on the song 'On Holy Land," these guys make it all sound interesting and fresh.
While the entire band's playing is tightly synced together, it's the coupling of guitarist Marc Hunter's wickedly decadent leads with Hall's commanding pipes that makes this album so addictive. Despite a few numbers that tend to meander - certainly not due to the performances, but because the compositions just aren't fully realized - the boys still add enough poisoned personality to hold them up with the rest of the album.
Like so much of the greatest rock before them, Pleasure Club is all about attitude. And with a no-nonsense rock 'n' roll attitude this huge these guys have quite a promising future ahead of them.

Pleasure Club will be performing on Saturday, June 26th at Mad Planet, 533 E. Center St., Milwaukee, WI. (414) 263-4555