Album Review: Peter Perrett, How The West Was Won

That Peter Perrett is around at all is a bit of a miracle in itself. Think of the fine cover of Otis Blackwell’s ‘Daddy Rollin’ Stone’ on Johnny Thunders’ So Alone album. It features Perrett alongside Thunders, Phil Lynott and Steve Marriott. All fell foul of their appetites except our man Peter, and he was no slouch in the getting-out-of-it department either. So to see him return to the fray after more than 20 years, and in rude health, is a welcome surprise.
If you’re familiar with Perrett from his time in The Only Ones – and ‘The Beast’ from their first album deserves far wider acclaim – then you’ll know that he doesn’t so much sing as talk you through a song. This record is vaguely reminiscent of New York-era Lou Reed, not least in the sound of son Jamie Perrett’s excellent, just-plug-it-in-and-turn-it-up guitar playing. The high points are the several genuine, unaffected love songs to Zena, his wife of an unbelievable 47 years, which Reed’s studied cool would never have found room for. The best of these – ‘An Epic Story’, ‘Troika’ or ‘Man Of Extremes’ – could have been hit singles in another time. Perrett even gets in a good Kardashian arse gag in the affectionate dig at the state of the American nation, ‘How The West Was Won’.
He loses me a bit on more introverted numbers like ‘Living In My Head’ or ‘C Voyeurger’, but, as he says, not sings, in the celebratory ‘Something In My Brain’, “Rock ‘n’ roll is back in me, oh yeah”. Oh yeah indeed. A triumphant return.