The new album from Dirty Fences, Goodbye Love, out on Friday via Greenway Records, is so gloriously ridiculous and fun, that it seems silly to even attempt to 'review' it. It would be far easier to simply cut to the chase and say how much of this works so spectacularly.
If presumed lead single "Teen Angel" suggest an unholy melange of Eighties hair-metal and Seventies punk, that should be seen as a good thing. Similarly, the chirp-y "Blue Screen" recalled The Sweet and other glam rock acts, even as the riffs roared more in the style of those Twisted Sister records from my high school days. What's on offer here on Goodbye Love is really an unholy mess of influences. That so much of this works so well is sort of shocking. I think the key is that Dirty Fences don't play this as a goof. At times,, like on the Yellow Pills-worthy "I Can't Sleep at Night", the band crank out stuff that suggests a more frenzied Rubinoos, for instance, while on other tracks, like the catchy "Love For Higher", there's a trace of the same sort of odd blend of punk and pure power-pop that propelled the first Cheap Trick album to glory. Dirty Fences might be a bit silly but the riffs are not, if that doesn't sound entirely too pretentious. If the excellent buzz-pop of "Dance" opens with a Ramones-style count-down, the track owes as much to that outfit as it does to loads more from the era. Tracks of Iggy Pop and even Hanoi Rocks reveal themselves if one listens to other numbers here like "Goodbye Love" and "All You Need is a Number", two other highlights from this album.
A dizzying whirlwind of all the stuff you might have cranked up on your car stereo some decades ago, Goodbye Love is a whole lotta fun. The record will be out on Friday via Greenway Records. More details on Dirty Fences via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Eleonora C. Collini via's the band's Facebook page]