Michael Grant & The Assassins - 'Always The Villain'

I nearly missed this one within the latest monthly batch of releases from Frontiers as I didn’t instantly recognise the name. It turns out that I do know, and like, Michael Grant’s work as he was previously the main man in Endeverafter, the excellent ‘Strutsy before The Struts’ San Francisco band that I had a soft spot for back in the noughties.

This time he does everything himself from crafting some seriously sexy, melodic-sleaze songs to playing all the instruments and producing. There is an actual band though and they’ve played on the Monsters of Rock Cruise last year and have plans to be out again playing live as soon as possible.

“Barrel of a Gun” fires the starter’s pistol with a hell of a ‘bang-bang’. This might actually be an unreleased Endeverafter track and hits a high tempo straight away. The second song is the title track for a reason and sums up the vibe of the album with the sweary refrain of ‘zero f*cks given; cos I’m always the villain’ - a Hollywood sleazy masterclass.

“Nightmares” is a nicely crafted pop-punk tune. It coasts along on the back of a delicate guitar motif before the piano and drums interlude sets up a killer extended guitar solo to bring it home in fine style. The video for the first single “Red Light Run” is a shoe-fetishist’s dream accompanying the semi-sweet story of a Sunset Strip angel with ‘cocaine eyes’. Another favourite of mine is the defiantly punky “Runaway (Can You Stand the Rain)”. I’ve always liked songs with a part of the title in brackets as it suggests a bit of depth and this song has that as well as some more artistic swearing. Love it.

The album has been some time in the making – you could argue too long as Michael spent several years as a hired hand in LA Guns, but it’s been worth it and there are no duff tracks. If you enjoy the Californian gutter-poetry of bands like Buckcherry and their ilk you’ll find much to enjoy here.