You can break out all the musical tricks, all the studio gimmickry, you can revisit, re-invent, re-brand, re-package, carry torches, build songs around nostalgia and familiarity, but it doesn’t count for anything unless you have one thing. Authenticity. If you wear that hat then you can do what you want. Walter Lure has that in spades so he can do anything he wants in my book. And if you want to level the criticism that the wonderfully named Wacka Lacka Loom Bop A Loom Bam Boo is an album built around a sound that you have heard before, the answer is well, of course it is and of course you have. And you know why? Because Walter Lure pretty much invented that sound.
This last surviving guitar slinger of legendary Heartbreakers, along with bands such as The New York Dolls, Dead Boys, band mate Johnny Thunders and London’s Hollywood Brats took punk, glam and garage rock and created a whole new street wise, gritty and honest rock and roll, a far cry from the art-punk pretension coming out of the UK at the same time. Lure and his acolytes have been riding that rock and roll rollercoaster ever since and no one….absolutley no one…does it better.
This album is the first set of new songs from him in a quarter of a decade and it shows that he has lost none of the bite that he made his name with in the first place. Songs such as Take A Chance is a growling, prowling predatory groove that marries glam-punk with Stonesy blues and She Don’t Love You and opener and lead single Crazy Kids remind us of just how riff and melody orientated the Bowery punk scene actually was. The inclusion of London Boys, a song from back in the early days and Lure’s swipe at The Pistols makes for a nice reference point and Talk Too Much wanders wonderfully into Mott The Hoople’s exquisite wide screen stomp-blues territory.
Some people just can’t slow down and Lure is one of them, it just isn’t in his nature and Wacka Lacka Loom Bop A Loom Bam Boo shows that he is just as capable of writing astonishing and refreshingly sleazy rock anthems now as he has ever been. And long may he continue.
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