ALBUM REVIEW: The Vicious Cycles – Get Wrecked (Pirates Press Records)
Vancouver biker-punks The Vicious Cycles are back with their fourth album Get Wrecked, and as usual it’s a full-throttle affair.
It’s their first long-player since 2019’s Motorcycho (reviewed here), and I’m pleased to report it’s been worth the wait.
Get Wrecked is 14 slices of hook-heavy singalong motorbike-themed anthems which the band deliver straight from their greased-up rock-n-roll hearts.
The five-piece come hurtling out of the garage with I’m Alive, and the ride picks up speed with lead single Hold On Tight, which, as frontman Billy Bones explains, is a metaphor for life and relationships, as well as being about “the physical feeling of riding with your favourite person on the back of your motorcycle – easily one of the best feelings a human can have.”
You might have guessed there’s lots of songs about motorbiking here… Another single, Daddy Was A Gambler, is up next, referencing Billy’s ex-preacher father and nurse mother “and how their differences made me who I am”,
The two-wheeled metaphors continue with M.I.A., about heading off on a motorbiking holiday, Pull Start My Heart, Blowin’ Smoke and Lift As You Climb, before things take a racey turn with Naked On A Beach, which isn’t just hedonistic, but also a critique of capitalism, and the lifestyle we’re all meant to aspire to.
“Why don’t we ride our bikes into the club/We’ll make a racket and piss off all the chumps,” sings Billy, “And when they cry, the two-stroke’s in their eye/ And that’s when I’ll know that I’m alive.”
The ’60s Spector-like wall of sound on Black Boots, Black Leather Jacket makes it one of the standouts, with a female singer joining in to ask “Did you see what your daughter brought home?”, while On Fire In The Hot Tub brings the promise of yet more debauchery.
Trouble Again is a cover of a song originally by Stewart Copeland of The Police – which only huge nerds of a certain age will recall as the theme song to ’80s animated series Droids.
Title track Get Wrecked speeds past faster than a hog being chased by the PD, and the Cycles try their hand at a murder ballad with Pretty Hands, before coasting home with the relatively chilled Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em.
Billy says: “I wanted us to write a record that you couldn’t not dance to.” With 14 songs hurtling by in less than half an hour, I’d say that’s job done. 7.5/10.
- Get Wrecked by The Vicious Cycles is available on two different vinyl variations from the Pirates Press Records webstore HERE, and wherever punk rock ‘n’ roll records are sold.
