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THE LAST VEGAS
Sweet Salvation

Culvert Music (2014)
Rating: 9/10

If I was pushed to choose my favourite couple of albums from the last few years, then Chicago’s The Last Vegas would probably win hands down with their brace of releases, Whatever Gets You Off (2009) and Bad Decisions (2012).

Although the sound and style was nothing new, the hard rockin’ crew gave a much needed kick up the arse to the contemporary rock scene, which had been dumbed down by so much corporate rock dreariness that I was beginning to lose all faith.

The Last Vegas offered glitz, glam, belligerence, subtlety, sleaze and attitude in abundance. Rather than just being mere flash in the pans like so many bands touted as the next cool thing, The Last Vegas rose to the occasion with big anthems, slick grooves and sweat-soaked live shows to boot. So the whispers of a new album to be released both excited and concerned me; it seemed so soon after Bad Decisions (although it has been two years unbelievably – time flies!), and yet I was craving another fix of those dirty licks, shimmering tricks and Chad Cherry spits.

On the previous two outings the band had been more than happy to add texture, and in spite of the deep throbbing rock ’n’ roll veins running through the albums, there was that sense of crisp production. This time round however the combo has gone back to basics, offering a more stripped, stark sound bereft of pro-tools, drum stacks and all that jiggery-pokery in favour of punk rock ethics, a live feel and a kick to the nether regions that you are not likely to recover from.

Sweet Salvation attempts to succeed by being a short, sharp no frills affair which has echoes of their earlier work such as Seal The Deal (2005). The band is bolstered by the addition of Bryan Wilkinson (guitars), who joins brothers Adam and Nathan Arling (guitars and drums, respectively), Danny Smash (bass) and Johnny Wator (guitars), who back the venomous tones of Cherry.

So, I’m gonna be as blunt as this record and say that The Last Vegas have come up trumps once again by removing the gloss and offering a more minimalistic approach, meaning that a majority of the tracks come across as tighter titans harkening back to some of the more primitive, sleaze-ridden works of The Rolling Stones and The Stooges. Album opener ‘Touch The Sky’ may surprise, however, as it floats in under the influence of alternative rockers Jane’s Addiction – even Cherry’s tone has a touch of the Perry Farrell about it. The track exudes a struttin’, jerking ability as Cherry sneers that he’s “Come to realise nothing is what it seems”.

‘Come With Me’ is next up; complete with Led Zeppelin-ish strut, it once again beams of Jane’s Addiction as Cherry barks, “I am the mountain, I am the sea” over a chugging tribal rhythm of Smash’s bass rattle and Nathan Arling’s drum rolls. It’s an immediately catchy number, and no wonder it was used to promote the record. As Cherry wheezes “Come on, come on”, the temptation is just something we cannot resist as The Last Vegas offers us the upbeat, summery pop-tinged anthem that is ‘Invincible Summer’ with its shimmering cymbals. When Cherry beams that “It was the best time of our life”, I’m inclined to think it still is as sleaze monster ‘Lucky 13’ comes churning out and proves itself on riff alone to be one of the band’s greatest moments. However, the real stripped back attitude of the band shines with the enigmatic ‘Miss You’, which reminds one of The Rolling Stones in the 80s as it incorporates a struttin’ piano, bass drum plod and killer chorus.

All the tracks seem short yet instantly effective; ‘Face In The Crowd’ is a speedy affair of hasty drums and Cherry’s alternative deeper growl, while ‘You & Me (You Never Know)’ features a barking chorus after Chad has told us that her “lips taste like cigarettes and alcohol”. It’s rock ’n’ roll cliché but we revel in it so much, and Chad Cherry and co. are becoming masters of that primitive vibe, bombarding the listener with the pumped up ‘Death Style’. Lyrically, it’s as if the guys made this up as they went along – “Cuz I’m notorious, an American disaster… I’m gonna destroy all things that come after” – but in its primal rage Sweet Salvation is the sort of rock record we so desperately need in our lives.

When the likes of Mötley Crüe have finally passed on, us kids – of whatever age and state of mind – are going to need bands like The Last Vegas to latch onto. “This is our time” rasps Cherry, and for the sake of mankind I hope it is, because without rock ’n’ roll music would be a faceless entity of commercialism and computer-generated irritants draining the life from us.

With the title track, The Last Vegas gives us one more fix courtesy of Nathan Arling’s persistent thud and a fuzzed up guitar and then, like all great bands, they leave us bereft but clinging onto the last fragments of hope for a better day. And that’s what rock ’n’ roll is; a force that instils hope and belief and takes us to a place where everything in spite of being dirt-coated smells fresh and looks cool.

To some it may be superficial, but to those who love this sort of music, Sweet Salvation is another middle finger in the face of corporate tripe and, above all, a soundtrack to our lives.

Neil Arnold