Boys Will Be Boys - Expanded Edition

“…and another drink…where’s that bottle? Listen up…”

Boys Will be Boys will, for some metal enthusiasts, be the initial ramp leading to this ‘new’ band, Black Rose. They’re new in this sense because their past had been witnessed by way few to see the single serving snack No Point Runnin’ and a same-named ep, career stops obscured by the thick traffic of the singles’ market as well as collective press runs found in only a few shops that likely tossed copies in ‘B’-marked indie-rock crannies, and really, you can’t blame consumers for not hearing every small and rare sign of life that limped along the metal underground.

Bullet Records, the company which two years prior pulled the guys’ 7” outta the fumes and would award its signees, whose previously released ep had all kinds of bionic legs, with financials to record a full-lengther, their first of such to really stretch out on that was a business move obviously intended to be the four-piece’s larger road sign that’ll snag all kinds of newly-possible fanbase faces. Existing fans, no matter how few, were already on the payroll, sorta speak.

Regardless, you wanna know how many blew right by this thing without even taking their foot off the gas? With its underscored, lesser format-type cover and its head-spinning title that just cracks open a can of hairspray, plenty of rivetheads didn’t even give it the weather forecast. However, if past Black Rose had already paid off for ya, there was a much better chance this could’ve peeled ya off the back seat.

Instead of lighting this nine-song woodpile with a past song’s proven fire, picked was the ordinary log of the title track to spark the flame. Admittedly, it’s a commercially adult choice in that any release’s lift-off should try to encompass as many qualities a band/album has to showcase (not to mention any promo’s side and song one is a disc jockey’s convenient best friend), however not so much as a simmer of the band’s capable temper weighs in here.

More of a tantrum comes with the ep-born “We’re Gonna Rock You” (misprinted on the jacket and label as “We’re Gonna be Your Lover” that would’ve pointlessly laid back to back with “Just Wanna be Your Lover”) that for some reason has been structurally reworked to no longer introduce itself with its chorus, meanwhile its known incessant snap n’ crackle has been watered down in a milder energy stream and uselessly safeguarded against some of its former organically intrinsic freedom. If that's how it's gonna be, for now let’s leave songs from the older guard for later.

Most of the album’s newly-chopped timbre is cut from the flourishing areas of the traditional forest, places that bustle actively and up-beat with songwriting apparently more alive there than in places countless other bands have searched for success. “Fun and Games” is an enjoyably strong n’ solid song with or without an eye shot out, meanwhile hard-hitting oak “Just Wanna be Your Lover” swings its bat with the harder vision blackening the pupils of some their choice past bruisers. “First Light” is acoustical flora that can’t make flowery the stubborn stonier ground that stirring “Burn Me Blind” has made its own. Last and least, more light underbrush acoustics cushion somewhat dystopian ballad “Baby Believe Me”, an obligatory rut to twist an ankle in that’s kinda outta place here among other songs’ greener and more spirited grasslands.

“We’re Gonna be Your Lover”, however dumbed down, is just the first of four taken from elsewhere in BR’s discography, and no further supplementation should’ve been needed in recreating them. Well, except one. Bald and basic “No Point Runnin’” was and still is in genuine need of hair implants, or how ‘bout a fatal overdose of anything to be rid of it for good, however haymaker “Knocked Out” feeds off the same motivational power source its older self tapped into for the One Take No Dubs compilation. And sweet hell, what happened to dirge “Stand Your Ground”? At the molesting hands which sculpt commercial-ready dough into commercially-dried plaster, this former war bunker of coolness has sadly been filled in to accommodate the boutique it resides in now, alternate underhauled lyrics and all. How humiliating.

In what could’ve been an offering commercially bereft of hope, Boys Will be Boys instead screw up some oldies while introducing some goodies, and accomplish this (whatever this is) with fewer predictable mainstream banners. Regrettably, I feel neither accomplishment nor disappointment in this album, ‘cause the potential Black Rose shows when they really want to deserves more than an android sense of neutrality.