Lessdress-Dumblondes

Sun City
2008

Lessdress hailed from Poland and were playing a style of hard rock that was very similar to what was popular over in the states at the same time. "Dumblondes" was originally released as a cassette only release back in 1989 and it was rare even in their own country. The good people at Sun City Records were able to seek out and and get the rights to this one. Then they re-mastered it and quite honestly the production values are very high. Lessdress play a fairly guitar heavy and surprisingly tight style of semi-sleaze/glam rock. The influences are somewhat varied because the guitars are relatively heavy, but the vocals have large, smooth melodies plus there are keyboards scattered throughout. I would say that I hear Def Leppard, Roxx Gang, Shotgun Messiah and maybe even Bon Jovi sprinkled throughout. The tracks here are very much designed to have you singing along and generally they work on that level. Although I prefer their songs that rely as much on the guitar because many of the many riffs are certainly above average for this type of music. They obviously knew how to mix up the tempos and sounds enough to maintain a fair amount of interest and that sets them apart a little for this kind of music. Unfortunately like every other hard rock band going at this time Lessdress felt obligated to churn out a ballad. The result is five minute plus slug paced piece of pulp called "Strange kind of friend" which turns out to be the only weak track on this album. Would these guys have made it if they had gotten on an American record label back then? I am not sure, but they have enough variety to their songs that I can safely say that they were better than a number of bands who did land major label deals back in 1989. They come across as being more just competent that out and out exciting, but the music world can use both kinds of bands. Overall another nice find by Sun City of a fairly rare slab of energetic hard rock.

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