Hollywood Burnouts-Excess all areas

Rock Road Entertainment/Soul Food
2012
The opening line on album opener "Hands of rock" states "we are the new generation". Wow, really? Germany's Hollywood Burnouts sound more like hard rock/AOR leftovers from the mid-late 80's. These guys formed in 2008 and quickly knocked out a demo and then an EP before now putting out a full length effort. This band has received some hype going into this album and in recent years plenty of young acts have been hoping to re-charge the hard rock scene or cash in on the sound. Clearly these guys are influenced by 80's acts like Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Guns -n- Roses, Black -n- Blue and others. Alright lets get to the positive because I want to be fair. The vocals are pretty good and I mean both lead and backing vocals. They are mostly consistent in that department, in fact the vocals keep several songs alive when they could have gone flat. The other major positive is that the production is pretty darn solid. When I am easily hearing the echo of a single drum beat and enjoying it then the producer and mixing crew did a fine job. Really the negatives are not laid on any single band member because all the members have some decent moments with their playing. The problem is an obvious lack of hooks. There are a few decent tracks, but mostly they really lack the real attention getting parts that keep people's attention. They spend too much time just putting it neutral and trying to glide through whether they realize or not. Oh and their ballads are down right awful. They cut those out altogether and the album goes up a little right away. Hollywood Burnouts have a few sparks, but not enough ideas to be anything great. There are better bands out there doing this style a lot better.