HOLLYWOOD BURNOUTS – Excess All Areas (2012)

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Last year Germany’s HOLLYWOOD BURNOUTS made a fine first impression with the release of their self-titled 4 track EP, and now they’re ready for the full length debut “Excess All Areas”.

The band’s mission is to bring back the excitement of ’80s rock music in both sound and vision and to achieve their goal they’ve armed themselves with a bunch of straight-forward hard rock songs and plenty of leather, eyeliner and big hairs.
Music of this ilk is best experienced in live situation where you can pump your fist and shout along to the songs and that’s probably why Hollywood Burnouts have chosen to keep things simple with little or no overdubs and easy to remember lyrics and song structures. And that works just fine for me.

“Hands Of Rock” kicks things of in just the right way and is the perfect choice as opening tune. An invitation to come join the party which I accepted with both hands. Musically and lyrically it’s a mix of both Crüe and Kiss in the mid eighties.
“Tonight” is one of the 2 tracks from the aforementioned EP that have made it onto the new CD. This is a melodic anthem in the vein of Swedes’ Reckless Love, with a contagious chorus and good guitars. The other track “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme” is a groovy, dirty rocker.
“Wild Side” is Hollywood Burnouts at their most heavy sounding not unlike Sweden’s Hardcore Superstar with a touch of Crashdiët. A hook-filled full-on rocker with a pounding rhythm and scorching duel guitar work. A definite first highlight of the album.

Up next is something quite different with “A Part Of My Heart” as it features just acoustic guitar, piano, mouth harp and some emotion filled vocals of mister Nazzty.
On “I Wanna Ride” the band express their love for riding the ‘iron horse of chrome’ very much like Poison did on ‘Ride The Wind’. A good semi-midtempo rocker with a killer solo stuck in the middle and the second track that deserves an extra mention.
Up next is “Kings Of Sin” that nicely blends elements of Poison and Kiss which is followed by the hard rocker “8 Lives Gone” and the fairy tale “Fake Baby”, that while not being downright bad tunes fail to make an impression.
“Wild At Heart” picks up the tempo a bit and has a some of the blues running through it. The nice acoustic ballad “Remember Me” brings the album to a close but not untill you have first exposed your hearing to a tune that will no doubt work superbly in a live situation, the infectious “Everybody Needs A Hero”.

“Excess All Areas” is an earpleasing hard rock album with simple but mostly instantly enjoyable tunes.
Clearly Hollywood Burnouts are influenced by ’80s American acts like Motley, Kiss, Guns, Black ‘N’ Blue and alikes. The feel of their music is pretty consistent with the imagery of the band; all here smells eighties by miles away… the music, the song titles and the way they are dressed up.
As players they’re effective and the vocals fit this style really well, all helped by a solid production. However, they need to improve the ‘hook’ factor.
There is still some fine tuning to be done here and there by Hollywood Burnouts, but keeping in mind that this still a young act and that they will no doubt get better and better with each gig they play, they are worth keeping your eye on.

01 – Hands Of Rock
02 – Tonight
03 – Wild Side
04 – A Part Of My Heart
05 – Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
06 – I Wanna Ride
07 – Kings Of Sin
08 – 8 Lives Gone
09 – Fake Baby
10 – Wild At Heart
11 – Everybody Needs A Hero
12 – Remember Me

Mike Nazzty – lead & backing vocals, guitar
Chrizzy Roxx – guitar, backing vocals
Vito Crash – bass, backing vocals
Nikki Sin – drums, backing vocals

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