CASABLANCA - Apocalyptic Youth

A lot of over-excited parrots have been appearing lately, especially in Sweden, claiming to resurrect glam metal. I would mention Crashdiet and Steel Panther here, but, unfortunately, there are many more. Add to that a few bands of American grandpas who live under the false impression that youth can come back. Here I’d list White Lion and Dokken and that’s enough or I’m getting sad. So they have the presumption to claim that what they play nowadays can be compared to what was being played in the 80s. God help us. It's true, attitude is important, but man, you need to know how to play.

This is why I’m now writing in December about an album that came out in March, because it’s too much. When it was released, Casablanca’s debut didn’t quite knock my socks off, but coming back to it months later, I realize that I like it more than at first. And this while no one knows about Casablanca, but they know about Steel Panther. Which totally sucks, but hey, life sucks.

Casablanca is a Swedish band, founded by an American - Ryan Roxie, who has played with Alice Cooper when he was younger, so he knows what glam is about. Fortunately, he has enough inspiration to back his rock star attitude with vigorous songs, easy to catch and hard to forget. Unfortunately, there’s only 5 of them, the rest being mediocre and becoming likeable only by repetition. Fortunately, Roxie met Anders Ljung, a charismatic vocalist, blowing his hoarse melancholy all over the record and bringing something that’s missing in many bands: soul.

So, Apocalyptic Youth is a good album, half exceptional. If we remove track 3 and then 7 to 10, we have a glam mini album that all the bands mentioned in the first paragraph should pay attention to. This is how it’s done.

Klawz Nota: 9