Hanoi Rocks-Back to mystery city, 1983

Oftentimes this band gets labeled as "glam" and that is correct as far as they had a glam look. The problem is that we tend to think that glam means 80's glam as in Poison and Motley Crue. Hanoi Rocks started before either of those bands, but they have a definite early 70's glam sound. Which means they have somewhat like the New York Dolls, Sweet, Alice Cooper and a few others. That's not all of their sound though because there is definitely an early punk rock sound to some of Hanoi Rocks' music as well. They are not completely removed from bands like the Damned and the Clash as guitarist Andy McCoy and bassist SamYaffa both played in punk bands in the late 1970's. So we have a band that combined 70's glam with early punk rock and to top it lead singer Michael Monroe also played the saxophone and so that gets thrown in the mix as well. "Back to mystery city" might be one of the band's least accessible albums, but it's also quite possibly their best. I think that the band sounds very excited throughout this entire album. Yes, the opening "Strange boys play weird openings" is, uh ..weird, but they told you that it would be. Once "Malibu beach nightmare"kicks in then the real ride begins. Hanoi Rocks excelled at making offbeat rhythms sound good. It's like they mix chaotic styles with occasional pop melodies and yet somehow it works. Even the ballad "Until I get you" is different from most ballads with Monroe sounding more frantic then sappy. They are probably not for everybody has I have met people who love commercial hard rock, but hate Hanoi Rocks because they are expecting these guys to be smooth hard rock and they are not. Guns and Roses, Faster Pussycat and other bands claim to have been influenced by Hanoi Rocks. Truthfully, I loved these guys back around 89-92, but had gotten away from them over the years. I got this one used on CD earlier this year and it's just as good as I remember it being. Now I need to get some of the others on CD as well.