Russell Crowe, Keanu Reeves, Minnie Driver, Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Gwyneth Paltrow, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jeff Bridges, David Hasselhoff, Patrick Swayze…the list of Hollywood A-Listers who’ve made unlistenable records is depressingly long.
It was therefore with much trepidation – and a fresh bottle of vitriol – that I approached this debut six-tracker from Juliette Lewis who’s suddenly decided she wants to be a punk.
As it turns out, hatchet-job lovers are going to have to make do with Ms. Dwyer’s slaughter of Rooster because …Like A Bolt Of Lightning is as compellingly caustic as anything that’s come out of Karen O or Brody Dalle’s gob recently.
Far from being a cuddly Good Charlotte-style pastiche, the opening ‘Shelter Your Needs’ – “Selling skin, fake tits, mutilation” – suggests that Lewis was able to draw on personal experience when playing her Natural Born Killers character. As for the machine gun riffing, I’m sure The Damned will be delighted that somebody in Iowa still remembers ‘Neat Neat Neat’.
Along with the bluster there’s a pop sensibility that’s particularly evident on ‘Coming Around’ and ‘20 Year Old Lover’, which sounds like a peeved Blondie.
Doubts start creeping in when you get to track five, 'American Boy' and realise that every Licks song is a variation on the same theme. One also has to question the sincerity of somebody who receives fat multi-national cheques screaming: “So flex that corporate muscle with your media circle jerks while you sell out humanity.”
Those quibbles aside, …Like A Bolt Of Lightning is a very pleasant surprise.