Shred: Steel Panther - Balls Out

1. In The Future 
2. Supersonic Sex Machine 
3. Just Like Tiger Woods 
4. 17 Girls In A Row 
5. If You Really Really Love Me 
6. It Won't Suck Itself 
7. Tomorrow Night 
8. Why Can't You Trust Me 
9. That's What Girls Are For 
10. Gold Digging Whore 
11. I Like Drugs 
12. Critter 
13. Let Me Come In 
14. Weenie Ride

As the cover (and in that matter the track-list) suggests, this album contains over the top heavy metal from the 1980's recorded with today's equipment and saturated with sexually explicit lyrics. Steel Panther is a pure parody band, but they have something that most parody bands don't have... Great musicians. And... Great songs?

The answer to that question would be yes, but while this band is instrumentally arguably on a very good level, it is the lyrical content that comes out as both a blessing and a curse. The lyrics are thoughtfully written, and although listening to Steel Panther at first feels like watching soft porn with your ears, overtime it starts to feel more like... Well, ordinary music. Or then you have just lost your mind.

All the songs on this record are completely listenable. After a strong opening with In The Future and Supersonic Sex Machine, the record buyer is taken to a  journey to so called daily life of Tiger Woods. The gag is old, this scandal happened early 2010, but the song, Just Like Tiger Woods, is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. There are other themes on this album that tie this record to our times more than the year 1985. One of them is social media. In the song Why Can't You Trust Me, the signer's girlfriend keeps lurking around in his Facebook and Myspace profiles to keep track of visits by other women. She surely has her reasons because Michael Star (artist name, vocals) seems to read the unholy bible of infidelity before he goes to sleep at night... Or more like o'clock in the morning. Or at noon. The protagonist of this album is a highly toxicated middle-aged man that has a somewhat reductive attitude towards women. Michael Star respects them only to the point he stops getting benefits; sex and preferably also money. As much of the album has the same setup in every ong, Balls Out can feel repetitive at times.

Steel Panther isn't something you may enjoy in large doses, but a listen there are here isn't harmful in any way. Just remember to respect your partner afterwards and don't take a word for anything what this band is saying. It is a game. They are playing characters. It's not real, but it sure is fun.