Limousine Beach – Limousine Beach
Release Date: 15th April 2021
Label: Tee Pee Records
Stream
Genre: Hard Rock
FFO: Kiss, The Sweet, Thin Lizzy, Boston.
Review By: Séamus Patrick Burke
Look, we love the Seventies. Who doesn’t love the Seventies? The Seventies were arguably the peak of rock n’ roll, despite what those whipper-snappers from the Nineties would have you believe.
And as far as America is concerned, the best rock n’ roll came out of the Midwest. So imagine our excitement when a rock band out of Pittsburgh decided to make it their mission to bring this spirit back. Formed by singer/guitarist Dave Wheeler out of the ashes of his former act Carousel, Limousine Beach proudly wears the “no nuance” badge on their sleeve, holding up a lighter to the great glam rock acts before them. And finally, finally, finally, after their Stealin’ Wine + 2 EP, the group has released their self-titled debut.
“Stealin’ Wine” still opens the album, and it sets up a pretty good example of what you’ll be in for; crunchy guitars, bombastic drums, tight harmonized Thin Lizzy leads, and lush vocal overdubs. Limousine Beach don’t name-check Boston as an influence, but the spirit of Brad Delp is strong on the vocal front. Later song “We’re All Gonna Get Signed” is all but a 21st Century re-write of Boston’s “Rock N’ Roll Band”. And true to their word, their lyrics are, shall we say, not exactly burdened with intelligence. Here’s the opening line of “Stealin’ Wine”…
I’m in the sky and I’m stealin’ wine
Take a little bit and pass it around
It ain’t mine but it makes me fine
Gets me by till I’m back on the ground
Good stuff. But by the second track, “Airboat”, you encounter a problem that sadly persists through the rest of the LP: every single song is underwritten and undercooked. It becomes baffling to listen to. Most of the songs just stop dead after the guitar solo, if they even get there. There’s nothing wrong with short songs, certainly. This is the perfect kind of music for “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.” But a short song still has to come to something of a natural conclusion, not stop dead before you even got back from the concessions stand with your first beer.
Once you notice it, you can’t un-notice it. “Night is Falling” may be the best song, simply because it’s the only one even approaching four minutes. And while we’ll never deride stupid songs about partying and girls, the bizarre titles and subjects Limousine Beach choose for their lyrics makes you wonder why they deigned to write a bad ass rock n’ roll song about this. Were rock fans really clamouring for a song titled “Black Market Bus Pass”? And your head may go right to the gutter seeing a song titled “Doo Doo”, but the song is called that because it’s essentially an instrumental where the band chants “doo doo” over the riff. The fake band
Limozeen from Homestar Runner made jokes about songs like this back in the early aughts, and here Limousine Beach is doing it sincerely.
Albums like this really remind listeners how important pacing is. Even for a short song, we need to feel like we’re building to something. “Tiny Hunter” doesn’t even feel like an album closer. It feels like a song arbitrarily slapped at the end of the record. The outro track is just ambient feedback that’s the same length as other songs on the record. What’s separating it from a proper instrumental like “Doo Doo”?
Limousine Beach have got the sounds of glam rock down and have enough swirling rotary speakers and twin leads to spare, but it’s all worthless if the songs aren’t there. Can’t have a party if you keep cutting the party off from really getting started. 
(2.5 / 5)
