Like a branch of The Sealed Knot Society with tattoos and leather pants, Buckcherry have done a fine job of keeping the Sunset Strip spirit alive long after the lights went out on that hallowed scene. But even modern day cock rock stars feel need to bust out of their cage occasionally.
Year Of The Tiger is BC frontman Josh Todd’s attempt to reposition himself as a 21st-century rock’n’roller. It’s less in hock to the recent-ish past than his main band, though bellowed punk rock-style gang choruses and the veneer of electronic modernity aside there’s nothing here to scare the horses.
Todd himself doesn’t have the most charismatic voice around – there’s a reason he spent the late 80s and early 90s toiling in the glam metal foothills – but he undeniably knows his way around a tune. Album highlight Story Of My Life shows a surprising maturity, while the brilliantly OTT Erotic City (‘Fuck so pretty you and me’) ploughs the same old crazy-bitches-on-cocaine furrow. You can take the boy out of Hollywood, but you can’t take Hollywood out of the boy.
