Hair Metal Hell: Jailhouse

Restless Records
1993

Andy says-

Where to begin. Well, thankfully this is only an EP so the torture is limited so to speak. Jailhouse's debut was a live affair. Because we all know live albums are the way to go right? Right? Anyone? Yeah, not so much. Making this worse is the fact that the band was more or less made up of castaways from Rough Cutt. And Rough Cutt was how popular in the 90s? So, having three members from a band who were on their way out the door should have been a big red flashing light. Sadly Jailhouse ran that red light straight into Hair Metal Hell. This live recording sounds in a word: STERILE. And that is being generous. Obviously the crowd had been given free booze (as this was some MTV event where it was recorded at) to loosen them up for what amounted to second rate hair metal. Covering a Thin Lizzy song only goes to show how far removed you are from the greats especially when it sounds like the worst jailbreak in the history of mankind!

Checklist
Out of tune vocals- 3, He was alright just very uninspiring.
Wanna be rockstar guitars- 4, I'll admit the guitarist can play. He might be the only one who can though making any attempts to rock out sound all the more phony.
More hairspray than bass- 5, What bass? I assumed the guy took a bathroom break during the recording.
One dimensional drum beats-4, He can bang those bad boys alright. "Alright" being the key word.
Make me wanna puke ballad- 5, Martin Luther King was a great man. He deserves better than "Land Of Today" guys. "Please Come Back" sound go back to where it belongs. It sounds like something Poison would write as a joke just to see if they could get away with it.

Metal Mark says-

I stumbled upon this disc because I got them confused with Southgang. I heard a song by Southgand like twenty years ago and remembered likng it. So a few weeks ago I downloaded this thing thinking I had the right band. I still have not gotten around to hearing Southgang and can't comment on them, but I can say that Outhouse...I mean Jailhouse aren't anything to write home about. However they are worth writing nasty things about in this column. It's funny that in the mid-80's Rough Cutt tried to kind of sound like more poular acts like Dokken and failed. A few years later several members had this band going and now they tried to sound like Bon Jovi, but again they fell flat as a pancake. I think the crowd noise was edited and parts were added later to enhance this recording because...
A- I can't imagine any person let alone several chanting "Jailhouse, Jailhouse" like we get here after they absolutely runied Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak".
B- Not once do we hear "you suck" or "get off the stage" and I am sure those were the top two chants that this band heard that night and probably most nights.

Checklist
Out of tune vocals- 3, He could sort of sing, but very little energy. He was just so second rate.

Wanna be rockstar guitars- 4, The guitars were alright, but really dry and lacked much of anything that made me want to hear this album again.

More hairspray than bass- 5, I tried several times to hear the bass and it never happened. I guess they just told the guy to move his head around, look cool but don't you dare plug your amp in.

One dimensional drum beats-4, This could have been a 3 until they got to the cover of Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak". He was all over the place and not in a good way. He wasn't the only problem, but it was like a blindfolded monkey hitting at trash cans with a hammer. Either he never heard the song before in his life or he was drunk or both.

Make me wanna puke ballad- 5, It's a shame I set these ratings at 5 because they certainly poor were poor enough to go up to 11. The one studio track here "Stand up" could turn even the strongest stomachs. Yes, the time says this song goes five minutes and two seconds, but it felt twice that long. I think they were trying ramble on about some kind of issues, but it was like the rant of crazy man as they tie drugs, nuclear war, starvation, racism and politicians all into one sugary, incredibly drawn out piece of ear torture.

Despite being an EP Jailhouse still managed to cram a whole lot of badness into just five songs.


Scorecard
5 or less - There might actually be something bigger than their hair on this one.
6-10 - The music may have held up as well as their hairspray.
11-15- Aquanet probably made up at least half of their gear.
16-20 -So bad, it'll tease your hair (and turn your brain to mush).
21-25- This will do more damage to your ears than the band's hairspray
did to the ozone layer.

Andy's score-21
Metal Mark's score-21