Last year, The Strokes and White Stripes were placed in a rocket of hype and blasted into superstardom. The media -- me included -- bludgeoned you into thinking they were the hippest bands in the universe and should be name-dropped at every opportunity if you wanted to be cool. Thankfully, they made brilliant records, so you didn't mind being told you just had to like them. This year, the thinking seems to be, if the hype worked once, or twice, then it's going to work again and again. So, enter the latest hippest band in the universe -- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Unheard of six months back, BRMC has since been collared as the next big thing, loaded into the hypemobile -- or the stereos of a million music hacks all wanting to jump on the bandwagon to herald the newest savior of rock 'n' roll -- and splashed all over your favorite music magazines.
But hold on, don't get too excited. They're not as mindblowingly good as The Strokes and White Stripes, but then again, who is? And although their name suggests they're Detroit's answer to Guitar Wolf -- conjuring up images of a gang of tattooed, leather-clad greasers wielding chains when they're not playing their guitars -- nothing could be further from the truth. This album crackles, smokes and burns a little, but rarely gets out of control, and the only song worthy of their punk-rock name is the speedy Primal Scream-esque rocker "Whatever Happened to My Rock 'n' Roll (Punk Song)."