ALBUM REVIEW: Slaughter and the Dogs: White Heat (Cadiz Music)
Proto-punk icons Slaughter and the Dogs are back with the sixth studio album of their storied 50-year recording career.
Formed in 1975 in Wythenshawe, a notoriously rough council estate in Manchester, their name was inspired by Mick Ronson’s album Slaughter On 10th Avenue and David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs.
Clearly influenced by US garage rock as much as UK glam, they went on to support the Sex Pistols at the famous Manchester Free Trade Hall gig in 1976 and the rest, as they say, is history.
They recorded one of the great all-time punk singles in Where Have All The Bootboys Gone?, while debut album Do It Dog Style deserves a place in any self-respecting record collection.
After splitting in 1978 and again in 1980, they reformed in 1996 and were a going concern until 2019, when creator Wayne Barrett fired the rest of the band and took legal action to claim the sole right to use the name SATD, which he lost in the UK, but retains elsewhere.
Thus, Barrett has nothing to do with this album, though founding members Mick Rossi (guitar) and Howard Bates (bass) are involved, with core member Phil Rowland on drums.
Featuring 12 new songs penned by Rossi, White Heat honours SATD’s punk roots, and shows there’s life in these old Dogs yet.
It kicks off with Get A Life (no relation to the Stiff Little Fingers song of the same name) before we’re treated to a cover of Lou Reed’s White Light White Heat, originally released on 1994’s SATD odds and sods compilation The Slaughterhouse Tapes.
Here it’s drawn out to five and a half minutes, twice the length of the Velvet Underground original and their own earlier cover, which feels a little unnecessary, classic song though it undoubtedly is.
There’s a real glam stomp to I’m Too Much. while a throbbing bassline powers Shut Your Mouth, which features previous collaborator Billy Duffy of The Cult as a guest guitarist.
City Of Rain (a tribute to the town which spawned the band, perhaps?) is a highlight of the first half of the record, but side one ends with the rather pedestrian Be Yourself.
Love Inside picks up the pace at the start of side two, while Stay sounds like a mid-70s Sweet album track when they were trying to convince us of their credentials as a hard rock band.
Blink Of An Eye is a similarly unremarkable track, but Light Me Up is a foot-to-the-floor rocker which really ups the ante, and is a real standout from the second half of the album.
Save Me is a plodding acoustic love song which completely dampens the momentum the previous track built, but there’s salvation in sight with the anthemic Calling Out To You and closer Lust.
Leaving band politics aside, there’s much to enjoy here for fans of old, and the bonus cover of Diamond Dogs I received with my digital review copy was a real treat. 6/10.
