Album Review: The Guilty Hearts – The Guilty Hearts  (Voodoo Rhythm Records)

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Reissue: First released 2005

 Arising from the fertile soil that was Los Angeles Rock’n’Roll Punk of the late Seventies. Offspring of The Cramps, X and more directly The Gun Club and their glorious debut lost masterpiece Fire of Love album.

The Guilty Hearts include a passionate, fired-up version of the Gunner’s Jack on Fire. A grisly tale of a predatory demon. B-movie horror trash and Delta Blues filtered through Punk energy. The tradition is as old as Folk music. Black Jack Davy, Matty Groves, Macbeth.

The trio have roots in East LA. The fertile soil for many of the seminal Punk bands of the late Seventies. As well as ground-breaking Rap and Hip-Hop.

Hermann Senac, drummer and co-founder of early Cow Punks Blood on the Saddle. Edgar Rodriguez, fuzztone guitar and Leon Catfish Zalez, guitar, harmonica and voice.

The album is a bit like being sand-blasted then washed off in lemon juice. As in, all your nerve-endings are singing in unison. That’s alright, just let it in the door and try and make peace with it. Really, they’re just here to have fun and you are too, if you know what’s good for you.

The general tone is the Stooges circa Fun House and whatever live shows have been captured there. But instead of things falling apart and the centre not holding, the Heartz keep the sound tight and compact like a hungry V8 Thunderbird with wings.

Too Far Down, Big Mouth Mickey, She’s Trouble. The Delta Blues of the South cooked in the bars of Chicago and Detroit. Muddy, Wolf and Willie Dixon. Channeling through the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds to the skinny American white boy rebels.

Search out the best document of this era on celluloid. The Decline of Western Civilisation Part 1 directed by Penelope Spheeris. A sorting out of the best bands of the time in Los Angeles. The ongoing history of Rock’n’Roll as a still vital part of culture. The title refers to Lester Bang’s writing on why the Stooges gained an underground popularity in the early Seventies.

Turn It Off. Sixties Garage Rock drone cyclical riffs. Sounding like the Sonics, Wailers, Kingsmen or Standells. A tinny keyboard buried in the mix.

Satisfied an answer to Muddy Water’s. Urban Blues guitar speeded up and merged into a barrage.

Him or Me is simple Power Pop taken from the Yardbirds template and Jeff Becks proto-Zep guitar mayhem.

Ghost in my Room is an extended Country Blues workout. A lumbering heavy bottom and a harmonica vibrato. Chainsaw guitar shredding over the top. Surge and fade. Blues walking like a man.

Pine Box Ritual. No real subtlety. Just a commitment to the primacy of the Riff. The rough beast is no slouch. He smells of beer and sweat, has tattoos and struts.

This is the vaccine, the antidote for these strange days. At the very least Guilty Hearts attempt to slap you back into some good sense. Say it and play it!

Rev Orange Peel
Rev Orange Peel
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