Hotcakes: Excess All Areas

Mouldy old dough.

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Trumpeted as ‘a loving homage to every cock rock album that came before it’ while dismissing Def Leppard as ‘pussies’, Sydney’s Hotcakes struggle to bust down the door with a raging stiffie but forget to wash off the comedy face, their smoothly polished procession of 80s poodle clichés falling flat with unintentional hilarity.

Opening double-header Rockin’ In The Afternoon (!) and Cut To The Chase (Naked Ladies) lead the bad-boy-by-numbers chest-beating of clumsily titled stadium squeakers, interrupted by obligatory ‘sensitive’ outing If Only These Arms Could Hold You, begging the listener to raise a lighter rather than a lob-on.

With the trouser-centric boasts, this sadly desperate relic can only be awarded the ‘Pants’ rating – even mighty Joe Elliott’s old ones after a world tour would be preferable.

Kris Needs

Kris Needs is a British journalist and author, known for writings on music from the 1970s onwards. Previously secretary of the Mott The Hoople fan club, he became editor of ZigZag in 1977 and has written biographies of stars including Primal Scream, Joe Strummer and Keith Richards. He's also written for MOJO, Record Collector, Classic Rock, Prog, Electronic Sound, Vive Le Rock and Shindig!

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