Four On The Floor

Former Hollywood A-lister Juliette Lewis and her backing band The Licks rock without mercy throughout their third album Four On The Floor, a laboriously endurance-defying excavation of every 70s rawk-monster riff you’ve ever heard, with Juliette’s angry vocal caterwauling thrown in by way of a bonus. Audibly bristling with rage, Ms Lewis squawks, snarls and squeals against a backdrop of testosterone-heavy, sweat-drenched metal-funk – think Joan Jett fronting Aerosmith maybe, or Alanis backed by AC/DC. 
Four On The Floor is neither spectacular nor spectacularly awful, at least in terms of instrumental competence. Dave Grohl (yes, that one) lends a disciplined ferocity to the drumming, while the guitarist Kemble Walters is technically quite fluent, despite his penchant for extended wankathon solos. The songs are, however, buried neck-high in rock cliché, and Lewis’s vocal petulance is tiresome indeed, displaying levels of strident hear-me-roar belligerence that make Courtney Love sound pleasant and well-adjusted. You could argue that the Licks are subverting gender stereotypes, and you might well have a point. Those inclined to look for substance here can point to the relentlessly bleak ‘Death Of A Whore’, a Lydia Lunch-style narrative from the first-person perspective of a raped and battered prostitute, replete with thoroughly unsexy “fuck-me-some-more” exhortations. Dark and unpleasant as it is, it’s also easily the strongest track on the album, which admittedly isn’t saying a whole lot.
Not a record I’m inclined to torment the neighbours with. Go placidly.