The trouble with wildly reinterpreted metal covers such as Driving Mrs. Satan’s and Hellsongs’ indie/acoustic versions of Motörhead, Maiden and Slayer is that it’s easy to feel that there’s a subtle judgement implied, like: aren’t you a bit silly for liking this in its original form?
That’s never been the case with close-harmony trio The Lounge Kittens; they have a genuine love of AC/DC, Toto and Metallica and for all their knockabout cabaret tomfoolery, are aiming at actual fans of those bands rather than the hipster types who look down on them.
All of which makes for an entertaining 45 minutes live – and a rather pointless exercise when committed to a studio album without the benefits of an audience to play to. Any initial fun at hearing SOAD’s Bounce, Rammstein and Prodigy medleys and The Beautiful People converted into sprightly, personality-filled vocal arrangements – even mimicking the musical motifs – pales pretty quickly when the ultimate effect is to relegate the power of the originals to self-effacing asides and kitchen-sink larking about.
