American Heartbreak

Album Review

Much like they have for the entire history of what is commonly considered glam rock, the New York Dolls exercise a massive influence over San Francisco's American Heartbreak — a band whose authentic interpretations of the style border on almost museum-like studiousness. That's not to say that the band lacks spontaneity (well, just a little bit) or originality (well, quite a bit, but then that's the point). It's just that their purist hearts are locked in such strict rhythmic step with their retro-minded mission that there's very little room for surprises — unless one can recognize surprises in the spirited revisions of time-proven winning formulas, in which case this album's generous helping of 13 songs is as reliably entertaining as it is inherently familiar. Opening trio "Somebody," "Sick n' Tired," and "Love Your Abuse" set the tone with their gritty, minimal AC/DC riffs that inevitably give way to the Dolls' bubblegum hooks and a series of cooed (rarely screamed) gang harmonies the likes of which Cheap Trick worked like a science. And that's all before you even get to "Things Are Looking Up," which adds a layer of acoustic guitars and arguably tops them all with the album's most immediate and unforgettable chorus. Ensuing numbers like "Raise Up Your Hands," "Isolation," and "Last of the Superheroes (Of the 1970s)" are similarly well appointed, though never quite as great, leaving the listener wanting for a better punchline, or at least a bigger punch in the gut, but "The Girl Who Knows Nothing at All" — a grimy power ballad in the L.A. Guns or Faster Pussycat mold — makes up the difference as it echoes through the back alleys of the '80s Sunset Strip. And, with late album heroics like "Crawling" (with its darker, Wildhearts tinge) and "Fallen Angels" (with its made-to-order poetics) cementing the band's creative prolificacy, American Heartbreak have a lot to be proud of in their reviving of classic rock & roll here.